Definitely seems like a mobile site! I do think there are too many categories, with a lot of spaces and scrolling. It's almost a little overwhelming going through all of them. Maybe it's the font also, but it seems like just about every tab requires more scrolling than usual....
agreed , i honestly thought for a while the forum had been axed , it was only by chance that I scrolled to the bottom of the page and saw the button , it makes much more sense to have the forum button at the top. (unless the plan is to get rid of the forum next?)
I almost did not find my way to the forum. 
There is no forum button on the new site... Its not a big deal but it was practical to have it there.
Uppsate: Saw it at the bottom now.. ^^;
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.
I have eye problems and I am honestly sorry to say that after being on the new site for half an hour my eyes hurt and I feel nauseated. It feels like a mobile page has been stretched over my desktop and it's making me dizzy.
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 think the new banners is not needed, it' just the same super popular comic all over again. I was kinda wishing that it doesn't take too much space, it looks cluttered.
This too.
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 only beef with the new layout is that all the popular/trending ESPECIALLY THE FRESH UPDATES BUTTON IS ALL THE WAY DOWN THE PAGE
and the link to the forums is in the footer now? was it there before?
good luck getting noticed now O_O
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.
Shoving the original desktop content to the bottom of a now very long homepage in favor of paid content that's only available on mobile probably isn't the best idea. But they're a business and they want to make money. It's sad to see but hopefully they can find some balance soon.
.... 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.
I have a feeling that we should post in the announcement forum insetad of this one, the mods are addressing the issues / watching that thread more.
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.
Someone pointed it out elsewhere, but it feels like much of Tapastic's success was built upon readership brought in by independent, unpaid creators, and now that the site is doing well, they're getting crapped on. I don't think Tapastic bears any ill will towards its creators, but it does come across that way, and actions do speak louder than words. As it stands, the current design sends a clear message of monetization first and foremost.
I also agree with what @GoldenPlume points out regarding having paid-only content being the first thing a reader sees. I think many of us can attest that the general audience on the desktop site skews young, and likely cannot pay to read comics. So there's a definite risk of a new user visiting the site, seeing 5 rows of pay-to-read content, and thinking "This site's not for me".
Anyhow, I 100% understand Tapastic is running a business and we're using their service free of charge, at the end of the day they don't technically owe us anything. However, I won't be surprised if artists start looking for other venues when they realize there's fewer means to find an audience outside of a staff feature. When I first joined the site about a year ago, it seemed like a relatively level playing field when it came to finding an audience. But if I were a new artist joining today, I'd feel like I was starting out 10 feet underground.
Promoting already-popular and prominent artists isn't a bad marketing strategy in the short-term, but I have to wonder how many new and diverse creators will be turned off in the long-term with this kind of design.
My complaints are very much the same others have in this thread. I honestly thought I had somehow ended up on the mobile version when I logged in this morning and I was quite shocked to discover this was a whole new look. I do think this update plays definitely in favour of the more popular comics and paid content in terms of visibility, which I find kinda sad. I already thought finding new less popular comics to read on Tapastic was difficult but now even the trending comics have been moved to a less visible spot.
I was also one of those who had trouble finding the forum but I also felt like everything else was misplaced as well. I had to take time to find where everything was and I was quite weirded out that dashboard was re-named "publish". It really feels like someone just took the mobile version and scaled it up a bit. It doesn't really work well on desktop and the changes seem unnessessary.
I can understand visual changes and updates but I do feel like this is less desktop friendly than the previous look, which does affect the user experience in a negative manner. It's too early to tell if the new place of the trending section will affect lesser known comics but if it does then I'll certainly be disappointed. If this whole update was to make the Tapastic website more profitable then I think it does it at the expense of the comic creators. I truly hope the Tapastic staff will listen to users and think again about some of the choices they've made.
My issue with that is that you actually CANNOT READ the first 4 or 5 rows of advertised content on the website, after you get past the first 3 teaser episodes it tell you to download the ap (because you can't buy or use keys on the website). Do not promote shit on a platform you can't read it on and need to get another platform to read it on. I assume (and hope) this will be changed because of the 'publishing' tab at the side? For for now though the front page is an ad ridden cock block. IF YOU'RE GONNA PUSH THESE SERIES ON THE WEBSITE THEN THEY SHOULD BE READABLE ON THE WEBSITE.
Aside from that, yeah, the order is pretty bad. Form the readers stand point, you're getting a lot of locked content you have to have a phone and the ap to read, and you have to pay for, not that I have issues with having to pay for something but it makes the site look like you have to pay to read EVERYTHING on the site. Which is going to confuse a lot of people and be driving a lot of people away. (The list of people that don't pay for comics is NOT excluded to people too cheep to pay, there are a lot of people that CAN'T due to age or not having access to resources like a CC or PP)
Also there are a lot of repeating titles, people stop scrolling before hitting the popular and tending section after seeing the same thing enough times, because it looks like it's just repeating stuff you already saw, enforcing the idea that you already seen what you haven't scrolled through yet.
Then from a creators stand point, yeah it is absolutely horrible, and I can honestly see the indi none-featured creators disappearing on this website, from both driving away existing creators to other platforms that they have better reach on, and from driving away new creators because there is no opportunity for them to be seen when just starting out. This was already difficult enough before for a lot of artists. I know that advertising is up to creators but there not a way to do it ON this website outside the algorithms, so then WHY upload to it when they can't actually advertise on it and only outside of it?
ASIDE FROM THE FRONT PAGE
I don't like how all my notification icons look the same, I can't tell my likes apart from my comments in my notifications tab anymore.
Also agreeing with others on that forum link.
Edit: And yes, I don't know what it is with the font but I can't read things right?? The keep reading the words out of order and it's just really difficult to read paragraphs now and they even look just overwhelming and jumpbled. Like the letters are clear and look fine on their own, but they are just not registering in my head as coherent sentences anymore. I don't know how to explain it better
I personally have no issue with the font-choice, but I can def. see how it would be troublesome for people with visual impairment or dyslexia.
My main issue is with the layout of the front-page. I've already emailed Tapastic about it personally, because I couldn't find the link to the forums (why the HECK is it not at the top of the page?), but gosh, it is a visual mess. It is cluttered and busy and confusing, and shoving the popular/trending/new categories down to the bottom is a bad idea. It leaves the top of the front page - which is the bit 90% of visitors will bother with - locked to the spotlight and two top 10 categories, the content of which is a lot more static than popular/trending.
Also, the trending category includes both comics and books now, apparently? And some thumbnails are rectangular instead of square? And sort of strewn randomly around the front page?
It's... not great.
Okay, a lot has already been said. so I will only focus on so far undiscussed issues with the font:
<3 and :3 don't look so good anymore. The cat smiley :3 is something I personally like to use often, but the <3 is something I see very often here on tapastic (because this is such a lovely community <3 ) and with the new font, it simply doesn't really convey the same feeling anymore. I know it's sounds silly, but isn't this friendly feeling what makes a lot of us make tapastic feel like home?
But I do want to add that I agree with a lot of things that already has been brought up, especially what GoldenPlume said.
