Oh gosh yes.
I honestly can't read it at all, it looks like it's more mobile friendly than a PC friendly one.
The light grey is difficult to read against another lighter grey background when you're checking your series.
I mean, it's really fancy and good looking (I really do think that) but beats me if I'm able to read it.
(Edit: While on the topic of new re-design; I kind of wish that the placement of the popular/trending and staff pick could be on top and then scrolling down to the rest of the comics/books! Now it feels like it's going to get even harder to be noticed on the site.)
I was JUST about to comment on this actually! I think the placement of new and noteworthy is fine? at least it is if it's what i THINK it is. I can only imagine the future gripes about trending/popular practically being placed at the bottom of a too-long website...I don't think people will even scroll down that far either. I feel like making them tabs would've been so much better than rows with a mile long space in between them all..
It definitely seems like they tried mimicking the layout of the mobile app but it..just doesn't work for a desktop website.
I agree! Like...I thought they wanted the site to not be so complicated right? Isn't adding so much stuff on the home page a little much? I had to scroll all the way down just to reach the fresh section button and I don't really feel like people would even remember that these sections exist anymore. ;x
The website kind of lags on my computer? I'm not sure if that's just a me thing or a website thing. And also the positioning trending and popular does not really work on a desktop platform the same way it does on the mobile because of all the ads for other books in between them (I thought it was just a mobile thing but it's kind of overbearing and annoying on desktop)
I second the concerns about the placements on the home page. I really don't understand why the popular/trending were pushed down to the bottom. It detriments creators to a degree since no one is going to scroll that far, whereas if it were placed at the top, a majority of people would see them, plus it's not much to scroll through so viewers could see other promotional stuff as well.
Also wish the forums were back up at the top of the page, but I still think since the design's new that might be changed soon.
possibly the website because it has so much more elements to load now vs the previous version which only had spotlight, popular, trending, staff picks, and the app exclusive stuff before the buttons at the very bottom for the store/creators/fresh/etc.
Now there's a bunch of banners leading to comics, a ton of rows that are extremely specific (top 10 comics/books, romance comics, etc.) and so on. I can really see it slowing down for others who's computers aren't as hi-tech or people with internet running on the slow side because its a lot to load at first glance. that's my guess anyway.
again, having it match the aesthetics of the app is understandable, but desktop websites function & read entirely different since you're not limited to a tiny screen. its the first iteration of the design and thankfully it looks like they're willing to change things around
I really don't like the new look. Usually when sites update their looks they take away things, and lose colors. Not add more and make everything look extremely full and cluttered.
I know I'm gonna get used to it in a while, but I'm sad they changed their very user-friendly website that I really, REALLY loved.
ALSO I'm not okay with books and comics just being mixed all over the frontpage. And I also don't like how some things are featured on the frontpage like twice or trice? It's just too full. Also the icons look blurry and are a bit hard to know what they stand for.
Ok I'm sorry I'll stop complaining haha.
My complainst are basically with the font, as others has said, the font is very difficult to read, and I do have already problems in the eyes so this is painful, although the look overal looks pretty fresh.
Also I don't like the fact that the fresh updates AND the forums are down in the main site, that doesn't sound too good for me.
.... The forums link is at the bottom. I had to scroll all the way to find it. I preferred it at the top, or if possible, part of the drop-down menu when you click on your profile.
I also had a hard time trying to find my revenue/tipping page. It was under "Publishing"? IDK. Words were changed. I'm a bit lost.
We have to say that the changes to the website aren't exactly what we would have in mind if we had any say in the matter. First off, yeah, the Forums almost have disappeared, being relegated to the bottom of the page. At first we thought the forums had been eliminated in their entirety!
The text and look of everything is definitely going to take some getting used to. It's fairly hard on the eyes. Everything feels massively "blown up" where the "Tapas Tipping Has Arrived" section takes up half of a screen shot. Plus when you click on it, all it does is lead to a collections, not any actual tipping functionality on the website, which would be mildly confusing to any new readers.
It definitely feels like there are "winners" and "losers" with this update.
The new layout gives the premium "paid" content top shelf. The top 10 comics are all "premium" (for sale) series and the top 10 books are all "premium" (for sale) series. The third self is new "premium" (paid) comics. The fourth shelf is new "premium" (paid) books. The majority of the fifth shelf is paid.
For a company that began with independent creators in mind, and has a "creators first" motto, it feels like that the company culture is changing and the website is reflecting that. Whereas before the independent stuff came first and the pay stuff came not far after, now the pay stuff is in the spotlight in a major way and the independent stuff is a very distant bottom, an afterthought. We'd like to see the data at how many readers scroll down that far, because its probably going to be a minority. After all, only 10% of Google users go beyond the first page of results. Let's face it. It's a lot of effort to scroll that far. How many readers are going to do it?
Another big concern is now the website is going from "semi dynamic" to "semi static". We use the Tapas app every day and the content it promotes changes very infrequently. At least at Tapastic.com "Popular" changed up some and "Trending" was constantly in flux. Now the top 80% of the website is going to look the same day after day. How is that engaging to new readers?
Additionally the placement of all the premium content on the top of the page makes little sense to a new reader who cannot actually purchase the content through the website but instead must purchase through the app. What happens if they don't understand that? It would make more sense if you could purchase the content on your desktop, but currently that's not possible. Consequently, how many first time visitors are going to click "They Say I Was A King's Daughter", become confused because they can't read beyond the early free stuff, and then leave the website? It used to be the first things you could click were free in their entirety, so readers had a chance to look around and get a feel for Tapastic. Now everything in the first third of the website is suddenly gated.
Before today we felt like we had a reasonable chance, with a lot of updates and hard work, that we could slowly make our way to the top, ending up more often on Trending and eventually one day on Popular. Now the top of the ladder has effectively been made the bottom, which leads us to wonder, how will any new creators ever "break out"? Both of our series benefited from landing on Trending from time to time, now it feels that the value of "Trending" has largely been diminished. If new creators feel like they have no chance on Tapas, won't that create a decline in creator engagement?
Tapas doesn't owe us an audience. That said, when indie creators spend $1000s and 100s of hours marketing, bringing a new outside audience to Tapas, they and their premium creators largely benefit from that, meanwhile the indie "unprofessional" (Medium article refers to the premium creators as "professional", so that means the rest of us are unprofessional?) creators are placed at the bottom, benefiting the least. It would be one thing if Tapas was spending $10,000s on marketing to place premium creators first, but right now it seems that the non-premium creators are spending more time and money on marketing and promotion that what Tapas currently is, yet we get bottom billing. Is that fair?
We really hate to say it but LINE Webtoons has always seemed much more friendly to new creators (with new series being easily discovered and gaining 100s to 1000s of subs in a matter of weeks, whereas those same series on Tapastic struggle for months to find a following) while Tapastic favored their high subs creators. This update and how it prioritizes paid over unpaid creators now polarizes things even further.
We realize that Tapas has to make money in order to stay open, but it feels like the company is becoming more and more like a gated pay publisher (The Big Five) and less and less an open platform for independent creators.
Our dream of making it to print just got a lot smaller today.
Meaningful success on Tapas seems now further away than ever.