Updated Site + Terms and Services

It's hard enough as a creator to get any kind of attention with the current trending genres, but now that they are even further down, it forces the more obscure comics/not popular yet comics into obscurity even more.

Not really a big fan of the new layout either. I know Taptastic is all about the new premium content, but this seems a bit ham-fisted.

• Font is beautiful typography but not ideal for say a Creator's page. If they feel compelled to use that font, best be used for titles and headers. See, thin fonts tend to be popular to artists. It's very appealing and I like them too. But you have to consider what it is being used for and its readability. In this case, it's not ideal.

• For overall web design, I like it the font they chose looks good for the menu div and the colors work well together. They found their colors which have to be consistent (the yellow and navy blue seem to be their choice) so it's fine that they use that for the header and footer. The extra colors added such as the green "+Series" is unnecessary but it doesn't take away from the look of the site. By the way, there is nothing wrong with them adding more colors in the update. Of course people will be resistent to the change but it's not a bad fix. But I do agree with others that there may be too much going on on the front page. It's still meant to favor touch screens and mobile users. At least Tapas doesn't use that infinite scrolling, I really hate that.

• For the publish button, I actually like that. It's much easier than clicking on the drop down menu and randomly clicking until I can get to my comic. I will say, maybe call it something different. Publish implies making a new comic but when you click on it, it sends you to your "dashboard" area with ad revenue info, episode updating for comic. Just a small preference.

• I have to complain about the footer. To me and my experience, it seems waay too big. Takes up over 1/3 of screen I believe. I guarantee you can reduce so much of that space by reducing the margins, if that's why there is so much empty space.

• The Discover page looks fine so far, not much different from the old one. The Home page, I can see why many of you say it is cluttered. I can see that, too much scrolling involved (more touch screen friendly). I hate that but most people enjoy it. There's too much emphasis on Premium and Top picks. I would think a mix of the "fresh" and "trending" should be near the top if you want the lesser known comics to gain more attention. I believe I got a lot of attention because of that in the old layouts.

• For placement of Trending, New, etc. I think it would make sense to have New&Noteworthy at the top, Recently updated (because that gives exposure to all comics, not just trending) and then Trending.

• As Uzuki said above, there are some parts that are not working. I will include a link to one example below. Certain emphasizes the mobile preference. Sad to me but that's where the future of technology is heading to, that easy interface format.
  https://sta.sh/0y4qf3md4rp4

Overall, the chagnes are here to stay and though they have some bugs and are in need of fixing, that doesn't mean they are worse. Even though I don't like all of the changes, I do think these changes are for the better. I would prefer Tapas work on the mobile vs desktop friendliness more as it still seems more mobile friendly than desktop. Don't be upset things are changing, you'll adapt.
I look forward to seeing the changes, I like web design am interested in how they format everything.

OH, also, yes change the font. Beautiful, artsy font, but not for regular text. Maybe for titles and headers but not regular text. Makes it difficult to read. That's the one thing I'll actually say should change.

JJ
Creator of Beautiful Lies

Okay, so more technical details.
- global.footer height is 246
- The padding on the footer for global-footer-link, global-footer-company and especially global-footer-icon could be considerably reduced for the sake of making the footer smaller. (Just my thoughts on it, not trying to tell you you're wrong. You're the experienced onces after all). I would also recommend for the social media, to have that in a more accessable location. People don't often actively go looking for it and these would require people scrolling aaall the way down to reach them. Same with forums. All dat scrolling mate, sucks for non-touch screens.

• Is Quicksand the font that's making everyone go batshit? Yeah don't use that as I said for the regular text. Even just Open Sans works better. It's a beautiful font but the problem with it is the spacing. That's why it's not ideal for regular text. Something like Open Sans is much easier to read with less rounded letters and less space between them, take as an example, whilst still being a relatively appealing look. If you still want that rounded look then hrm.... I can't think of one immediately that doesn't cost money. I meant that crisp, easy to read look comes from sharp edges ( I don't know my typography jargon so bear with me). If you look at Source Sans Pro, that's a bolder looking font but sitll easier to read. THen if you look at "Print Clearly" that one is even worse than Quicksand and for the same reasons Quicksand is bad (spacing, thin font).
  Just experiment with the fonts and keep in mind readability above aesthetic. (Business-oriented graphic design vs artistic graphic design). Also, I really like Josefin Sans. Little rounder, much easier to read, crisp.

By the way, I like the subtle, rounded outline around the wraps such as for the "Pro Tips." Borders are one of those things that rarely look good.

• I'd also prefer the Forums button go back to the top for ease of access, as I mentioned with the social media being somewhere more noticeable.

EDIT One last thing, I'd recommend expanding the width of the body on the main page. 940 seems way too small and most people have pretty large screens nowadays. That certainly adds to the "cluttter" people have been describing the new look. Or make it relative

Cheers,
JJ

wow i think that's the most disheartened thing I've ever seen you guys post here. Whoof. Never thought I'd see the day.

in other news, i keep instinctively touching the spot where the "forums" button used to be, and keep clicking on "creators" instead

hoo boy the muscle memory is real tho

I wanna start off by bringing something positive to the table and say I love that you are finally uniting the brand! This will cause for less confusion between the app and the desktop site, and will make tapastic easier to push on the market, which can benefit everyone on the site! Big creators as well as small ones.

However, that being said...
I feel like what makes tapastic so great is that it's the land of rainbows and unicorns where EVERYONE gets a chance to be seen, and can get much more recognition than anywhere else. I know many of you feel second class to boyslove and gag comics, but speaking as someone who started out only having a horror comic on this site, I know tapastic was a much better place to be seen with difficult-to-sell comics too!
In order to be this loving, great community that gives tons of people the chance to live their dream, i beg you to lift these sections and have them in the following order:
1. POPULAR - gradually, new creators make it into this section all the time. Maybe not the first page of it, but the second page at times and it can give them a huge influx of new readers when that happens! It also helps sustain the healthy reading culture. The top 10 comics simply don't update as freshly and often as the popular section, meaning popular is more sell-able in the land of pageviews and ad revenue. This is crucial both to you as a company and some of us creators, is it not?
2. TRENDING. This was a section where magic happened for so many people. Once upon a time i was a nobody on the site and getting into trending occasionally with my little obscure horror comic made me SO HAPPY. I can't bear to think that creators from this day forth wouldn't get to feel all that joy as the trending section is now buried almost like a shameful badbad that nobody wants around anymore ):
3: FRESH or NEW AND NOTEWORTHY. I prefer this over staff picks. Simply because i am more likely to check out something that in the title implies it's something new and upcoming, rather than something that makes it feel like it might just be staff promoting their friends. I know this isn't the case, but to a new viewer it will feel like it, so titles are important.

Oh, also, i can no longer access the forums on desktop. I use chrome. This is a bit of a problem :c

Concerning the comics published by non-paid creators, the Popular and Trending section should still be on the front page. Otherwise, just occupy a small space of it on the same old area (below the Spotlight section) and put the other premium Tapas comics below of it.

However, that's just my suggestion.

To go back on the overload of premium content at the top of the homepage, might I suggest keeping the popular and trending up top?

Considering newcomers to the website, it might be better to lure them in first with free content before blowing all the scary 'gotta-pay-for-this' comics in their faces. It can be intimidating, especially when the first hundred-or-so comics displayed there are hidden behind a paywall.

First off, I'm still a reader and not a creator.

I like the current font, and it's good that the app and desktop version are being unified, because them being so different is a bit confusing. The site in general comes off as fresh, clean, and professional. But there is one thing I don't agree with:

The initial screen and first "scrolls" are premium, app-only content. As a reader, this is a turn-off in three ways:

1. I'm on desktop, and I need to go to the app to access these comics? I'm on desktop for a reason: big screen, access to a real keyboard for typing replies, doing other stuff as well as reading comics.
2. Everything is paid content - let's face it, people love free stuff, and stuffing our faces with free comics is probably the reason most come here. I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of readers will at most want to buy into one or two comics, and the rest of the time they're around for the free ones. If they're not seeing any free content at first glance, they will assume it's only paid content.
3. The independent, free comics are gone? The not-promoted-or-officially-endorsed comics are pushed so far down that they simply aren't visible unless you scroll pretty far, and even then it's not clear that they're actually free. The site comes off as exclusively curated as opposed to free creation - which IMO is not as attractive.

To sum it up, I think it would be beneficial to both the site and the users to show both premium and free comics on the top screen, because readers will be more inclined to get invested into tapastic if they can get more out of it than the few series they pay for! As this article succinctly points out: It's better to convert 5% of 2 million visitors than 50% of 100'000 visitors, and you will be getting more visitors with prominent free content. And you'll have more creators on tapastic - which all funnel more people to the site through their promoting their own comic.

I think that it really comes down to that there are two directions for Tapas/tic to go: Aim for the small number of well-paying readers and make the site focused on curated pay-content (reader-focused site), or promote the forums and the free content and have premiums as a bonus (creator-inclusive site). Both are legit business models, but if the former is what you're aiming for, which it looks like right now, I think we'd appreciate a clear statement on it, because up until recently, Tap seemed to be the second model and many creators are feeling cheated right now. I also do not feel terribly compelled to upload my upcoming comic to tapastic anymore, simply because I don't think it stands a snowflake's chance in Sahara in getting noticed.

I should add that I feel the same about the app. I come for the free comics, and it's alienating to be bombarded with all this premium content and ads.

EDIT:

I somehow completely missed this on my first readthrough. Good to know. I'll still leave my post as-is because there might be something of interest to you in it anyway.

Edit2: I don't mind the font much, but when typing a reply to a comic it feels redundant to bolden the text.

So, in summary, people don't hate the premium comics but the majority of tapastic creators and readers are here to produce and read free content and we would all prefer for that to be promoted highest on the page, right below the spotlight, where it previously was. With this many people all agreeing on the same thing (I've had people in my audience express this to me too, so there's even more people agreeing with this than you see speaking up about it here), i think tapas as a brand would suffer horribly if they refuse to change it.

However some people seem a little grumpy and I should say that I honestly don't feel like tapas did this on purpose or to alienate us. The way this looks right now, the new desktop look is a work in progress. They basically translated all the app's coded frontpage over to the desktop and plopped it on top of the current one, and it should be an easy fix to just move the popular and trending sections up. I doubt they'll ignore us.

We believe in you, tapas staff!! Bring the promotion of free content creators and small creators back! OAO/

Yes, Thank you. I hope this can roll out soon, this causes me to lose much of my interest in Tapastic, despite the already better UI.

I'm already miserable and struggling enough as I am after recovering from an extremely long creative slump, but to push independent creators all the way to the bottom of the page? I truly hope that this isn't an omen for the potential terror that is to come, I mean the world in itself is already falling into a pit of degeneracy.

Please reconsider the layout of the front page, especially how independent creators are being presented. I understand the need for bucks, so I'm okay with having premium comics on the front page, but making practically the entire thing dedicated to premium comics diminishes the little hope for my work I already have.

3

This might be a bug or something, but I don't know, but how do I add a title?
I can't post an episode because I can't add a title, but the bar is gone?

@Chopythes Oh my god so it's like REALLY hard to tell but there's a place to type it near the episode number. Where the word "Title" is grayed out.

OMG THANK YOU!
I'm so used to it looking like before, I didn't even think about clicking that!
Thank you for letting me know!