OMG, Steepster has a new look!
So…I went & ran some errands, made dinner, sat down to log my teas, and…huh? Steepster changed! The first thing I noticed was the new font, & I haven’t really had a chance to look around a lot yet, but I’m impressed!
Pretty cool facelift. Liking what I see so far (though the tea description thing, yeah, I agree with that). The flavors in an interesting add. Will be interesting to see whether it gets used a lot. I hope it does.
Tasting note recap is not using the proper user names. E.g. Silaena instead of Sil in the Shamrock Tea that just came up on my feed.
I’ve been literally sitting here just logging info on everything in my cabinet.
Is there any chance we can get a “Caffeine Free” label option (if you haven’t answer that already)?
Everything looks great! 2 comments. I noticed when you enter in ingredients, it automatically lists them alphabetically but the order that ingredients are on the packaging is by weight. I’m not sure if that matters to guys or not but it can be telling if ingredients other than tea are listed first. Also, I noticed a section for caffeine content and I feel like that could end up being misleading if someone or even a tea company mentions the level of caffeine and hasn’t specifically had that tea evaluated for caffeine content as there are a lot of misconceptions about caffeine levels. This could lead to someone with a health condition purchasing a tea believing it is low in caffeine. Just a thought.
Oh the ingredient thing matters to me. I agree with you Butiki, ingredients should be listed “most of first” not alphabetically. You can tell a lot by the order of ingredients. I would prefer to have them as the vendor enters/lists them. :))
I agree, Butiki! I hadn’t noticed that, but I only entered ingredients for one tea, and didn’t check back. Since they were in amount-order in the window, I expected them to stay in that order on the tea page!
For the ingredient/flavor listing, we totally agree. Our original specs had it formatted so that they showed based on popularity or weight, but it didn’t make the cut. We’ll look to add that with another update.
The caffeine thing is a good point. We’re trying to see how this is used and will hopefully be able to react. We might have to lock down certain things for health reasons until a company can verify them, but it’s definietly a good consideration.
The new facelift is pretty neat overall, but I can see some potential issues already with it. One was the whole tea description thing that Dexter3657 brought up on the previous page.
Another is that the ‘Available/Unavailable’ button doesn’t seem to be working? At least not on any of the teas I’ve checked that I know for a fact are currently available. I’m not sure if that’s just because this is a new system and it needs to be reset or something else, but I just thought I’d point it out.
Another is the ‘Recommended Preparation’ thing at the top. I appreciate the effort and thought into putting such a thing onto a page (gods know I’ve paged through pages of tasting notes to see what other people have used often enough), but how is that figured exactly? Averages for what other users have posted using? The one that is most used among tasting notes? Actual numbers off the Tea’s Origin Website? Close your eyes and pick a number? Lol. It just seems like if it doesn’t go off some exact number and uses averages, that the number could change without warning and cause brewing issues for people.
And while the ‘Similar/Recommended’ teas thing is a nice touch, putting it before the tasting notes seems like bad placement to me. I know it’s just two lines and easy to scroll past, but I think it’d just look better at the bottom after someone has read through some of the tasting notes. /shrugs/
Just my two cents. I’m not even sure if there’s a better place to put opinions or not, but it seemed like the most likely to be noticed here at the moment.
Oh, and when’re we going to get a ‘swappable with user X’ selection? Lol!
Yeah it would be useful if we could add the vendor’s recommended steep time and temperature!
And I second/third/whatever Dexter’s thought about moving the Vendor Information up, and the Customer information down. Those blurbs don’t tell me anything. I’d rather see what the vendor tells me.
Overall I am happy with the changes, but I think a few tweaks (like switching those two categories) would make a huge difference in our satisfaction.
And Shadowfall- I’m guessing the available/unavailble thing is something the vendors set up with Steepster so that we can click and go right to their site. So, given time, we should see that populate too.
Good points. I’ve responded to them in another reply, which you can see here: http://steepster.com/discuss/6947-the-new-tea-page?post_id=125633#forum_post_125633
Overall I like the changes.
Dashboard,
I like the new font on the dashboard, which I find easier to read. It looks much more sort of streamlined now.
I do think, however, that the heart for liking a note is very tiny. I wonder if it would be possible to turn the link where it says ‘6 people liked this’ and the heart into one larger liking button. I keep hitting the link by mistake all the time, and the time stamp is already a link to the post itself. I don’t think more than one is really necessary.
Tea pages,
On the tea page I found it a little confusing at first, but I think it’s a question of getting used to it. I understand what it is you want to do regarding the (often purple-prosed) company descriptions of the different teas, but I do think it’s a little strange to have to scroll down so far. I like that a company description has been added, though. I don’t think that was there before, was it?
I also like the community bit. It emphasizes the community of the site where before it more like just a database. I will also be a lone voice in the wilderness and say that I rather enjoy the snippets. Yes, they repeat what is further down on the page but I’m one of these people who get a conceited little kick out of seeing one of my posts snippeted. :p I look at them sort of like ‘recommended reading’ rather than having to wade through twenty pages worth of posts on the popular teas.
I don’t much like that ‘buy’ button. I don’t really think it should ever have been there to begin with because Steepster is neither a shop nor a market place, and the button sort of implies that it’s you selling. At the very least, it’s far too large and imposing while the button to write a post about the tea is teensy weensy underneath it. I think the post button ought to be much larger, and if you want to keep the buy button, you could move it down to where the company related things are and let the post button take its current place and size.
I’m ambivalent about the flavours section. It’s a good idea, but I fear it might turn chaotic and unhelpful because flavour is so objective, especially in teas that haven’t had flavouring added to them. Something I experience as, say, pineapple, someone else might experience in a vastly different way, and if that’s there on the tea page outside of the context of my note… I’ll feel like I’ve promised people pineapple when I might be the only person who thought that was what it tasted like. Or in the case of unflavoured teas, some people might be led to believe that it had been flavoured with these things. I can understand what you want to do with it and why, but I don’t think it’s a feature I’m going to be using myself.
The posting popup
The rating button threw me for a moment, because it was so long and I wondered how I was going to aim with it. The middle, the edge or the other edge. It made more sense once I started moving it. I like the button for recommending it to others as well.
The preparation details have been greatly expanded as well and they take up a lot of space at the cost of the typing window which is very small. I know a lot of people use these details every time, but I’m not one of them, and it means I have to scroll down to get to the post button. This may be a tall order, but could this section perhaps be made collapsible, so that people who don’t use it can skip it more easily? Obviously I would like the site to be able to remember my preference on this. I don’t even know if this is possible. If, however, I pretend that I’m interested in using them, I think they look better than before now that they’re larger and easier to use, as well as the addition of how much water and leaf was used. Again, that’s not something I use at all, but it’s a good idea.
ETA: Gosh, wall of text! Edited for spacing!
ETA again: Ooh, and I forgot, on the tea page, why are user icons suddenly round? They’re not round anywhere else and not other images on the site are round. It makes a tiny icon even tinier. I would prefer them to be kept square like before. Or at least, if you want to have them round, perhaps make them a little larger.
I will not hold you to pineapple if you will not hold me to mineral!
I noticed this morning that the flavors can only be selected from a list (though you can propose new ones) as opposed to being write ins. Some of the more interesting notes to me have always been the ones in which people taste something that perfectly describes what I taste, but is totally off the wall. Play Doh, Cream Soda, Etc. It would be good to have the ability to write in your own flavors and/or choose Other: specify. It may not be necessary to have Play Doh on a list of frequently used flavors, but it’s a very evocative description and should be able to be written in.
I probably should elaborate, I don’t really mind the flavours section as a sort of ‘summary’ of the post itself, especially when you, like me, have a tendency to rather go on a bit. But I’m not keen on it being ‘gathered up’ to be displayed out of context on the tea page.
LOL. Yes, we do go on, don’t we? ;-) Agree, sometimes these things need explaining. It may perhaps lead people to be conservative in their flavor listings.
As always, thanks for the thoughtful feedback. I’ve responded to a few of your points in another post, which you can find here: http://steepster.com/discuss/6947-the-new-tea-page?post_id=125633#forum_post_125633
To the points I didn’t cover…
Making the heart bigger – good idea.
For subjectivity of flavors, we do recognize this is the case. Our hope is that over time the true flavors of a tea will “level out” and emerge through the masses – it’s kinda a numbers game. If that doesn’t end up happening we’ll reevaluate. But, this is our first attempt at trying to make something subjective easier to understand for other people.
The preparation details to add a lot and take up space. We’ll look to refine the interface as we continue evolving. It is tough right now because we did add a lot to the page, hopefully it’s useful and will just take some time to get used to.
Yes! I like it, but there are some issues:
1) the font is not scaleable with accessibility programs. Or at least the one I use in Firefox. (NoSquint) I had to change my base font and apply it to everything. Now Steepster is readable, but other websites look TERRIBLE.
2) When posting a tasting note, after I post it, an old tasting note is highlighted at the top of the page. What? So I have to click around to double check that everything went through and formatted the way I thought it did.
3) clicking on “suggest a flavour” does NOT open into a new window. OMG. I lost a lovely tasting note, and was so cheesed I almost started crying. An overreaction, yes, but I’m exhausted. I just wanted Steepster to work so I could post notes and go to bed.
I’m sure I’ll find more things. The design is lovely, and as soon as all the kinks are worked out it will be so nice to use.
It won’t take “1.5” as a tsp measurement. It NEEDS to go to 1 or two decimal places. A lot of teas are “use 1.5 tsp” or “use 1.25 tsp”.
Agree. This morning I tried to write 6.75 g and it went down to 6. I had to go back in to change it to 7, because it was closer though still inaccurate.
Thanks for noting these. We have them on our list and will look to fix with another update.
Btw, the suggest a flavor should open your mail client (it’s a mailto: link) so shouldn’t mess with your tasting note. But we are looking to change that so hopefully it won’t be an issue much longer.
Assuming everyone uses a mail client is a huge assumption. I use webmail, so a mailto link opens my webmail in the same window as the tasting note.
I know it,s not such a big deal, but I miss seeing the “face” of the reviewers, I see only their names on my dashboard. You have to click on it if you want to see their pics. I think is was a nice feature before to see the pic next to it…
I hadn’t even realised this had changed, but now that I have, I agree with you. I would like to have that back as well.
It,s a problem when you associate certain people more with their pics than their names. If there’s 2 members using similar names for instance, makes it a lot easier to identify them in your feed..
I agree! Sadly, it’s easier for me to remember Steepsterers for their pictures, not just their name… or else it’s easier to identify quicker by sight. Or it’s especially useful for someone like me, where my username could apply to everyone on Steepster. :D
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