Thoughts on the redesigned homepage
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Others have informed me that the number one and two reasons I was going to the home page are best handled elsewhere.
- To find out what new series have been added. Currently impossible at a glance because I want the top of the list and circles have no tops.
- Because I've run out of stuff to read and I want to check the "recent releases" to see if I should reconsider something. This functionality was entirely removed.
As I said, though, other folks have told me I can better answer both of those questions without using the Home page at all. So now I have no reason to ever use the Home page.
It makes me worried about the rest of the site, though. I literally have no clue what device the new home page is targeting. It definitely isn't designed for my full-screen desktop view. But it isn't particularly compelling even when I resize the window. It would be better served by doing what some sites do and just pushing using the phone app heavily instead. It's designed for a phone (clearly) but phones are better served if they're not using a web browser at all.
Then there's that feature you've been pushing recently, "Continue Reading." (1) Phone users are better served by using the phone app. (2) This doesn't work with long-term users, as it shows every series they've ever read, even when they quit series. (3) It is irrelevant for users who prefer to just download ePUB files. (4) It doesn't get a lot of use because it doesn't offer a lot of usefulness, so it does not need to be shoved in to our faces.
Back before the back-end redesign a few years ago, we could see the progress in to book parts from the Calendar page. (The phone still has this functionality, but we used to have a touch of this even if it wasn't the best.) Adding this functionality back would have been a positive change everyone would have been super happy about.
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@Michael-B-0v9bj1z It's kind of a toss-up, but I'd lean more toward Bookwalker.