The website and app Letterboxd is similar to Goodreads but for films and its design is amazing and I can barely use Goodreads because I'm used to the better Letterboxd
There is also their search engine. If I don't write the exact title in its entirty, the poor thing gets so confused, and suggests the weirdest things. I recently started The Children of Men, and when you write that title except the last N it suggests The Bible, Alice in Wonderland, a spanish edition of a Jack London book and others that are NOT The Children of Men, unless you write the whole title...
On mine if I'm not paying attention and type too far my actual book disappears. Noticed it again with Mansfield Park. Type in Mansf and it pops up, add an i and Goodreads is like 'nope nothing like that exists.' All the way to Mansfield Park Jane Austi it's like 'quit expecting me to recognize self published drivel' add the n 'oh okay I have that and five other random books.'
I agree with the search feature. I type fast, so I will see a book as I’m typing pop up, but by the time I stop, it’s gone because it doesn’t recognize partial words. 🤦🏻♀️
@afootineachworld um yes, you can. I know there are in betweens, that's what 1-10 is for. Goodreads isnt 1-10, its five stars. Just pick one. That's such a nitpick
09 RetsamEdalb There really is an in between for star ratings. It’s a fine distinction in reviews. It would also probably screw up the rating system GoodReads has, which is why they don’t allow it.
As a (often) non-english-reader I HATE that you can‘t select a language in the editions-list of a book. I have to scroll through ALL editions to find for example the german edition of a book and I have to pay attention to the listed language while scrolling because cover and/or title are often the same as the english one and the language is not very noticable 🤦♀️😒
Regina D if you have the app you might want to try scanning your books. Normally it will take you to the right edition (if it’s on goodreads, but you won’t find that edition any other way either on goodreads so that doesn’t really matter)
Yes, the scan-function works pretty good for this 😊 I always use it if i have the book on hand, but I also use my goodreads „to-read“-list as an „i‘m interested in this book“-list, so i often don‘t have the physical book, or when I‘m reading the ebook or listen to the audio-book, i can‘t scan them 😕
I couldn't agree more! Also, * I find that I can't see my reading stats at all on my android application. * I tried adding a book (ASOIAF #1, leatherbound Harper Collins) I couldn''t because someone already registered the ISBN number but did a very poor job of uploading the picture, information or anything useful. And I can't request a fix for that number either. * There's only 1 version of ASOIAF #2, I have 2 different versions that are just not available, the version on is is 150 pages off mine in page count. * The reading stats, one of the most fun parts of this website are truly appaling at best. You update pages but the total pages just gets added after you finish the book, not live. The menu is so far hidden on the site too. * Switching books from "want to read" to my self made shelf "In Collection" (why isn't that an option anyways) and I had to switch them from want to read to in collection manually, one by one through 4 different loaded pages. You cannot select multiple books at a time nor can you change the shelf they're in in the page that shows your list of books. And lastly: * I got all 150 messages of Daniel accepting the people in this video seperately. So I had to scroll 150 messages back to see my friends updates. seriously?!
Hey, for the 2nd asterisk there is a group with the 'Librarians' called 'Goodreads Librarians Group' where you may requests edits for books already in their system. 3rd asterisk you may add editions manually (asin/isbn may be omitted if they for some reason share one, and its already in their system). 5th asteriks .. if I understand correctly you may edit the functionality of a bookshelve(s) to exclusive so that when you add it to one of the exclusive selves it removes it from the previous one it was in automatically, you may edit multiple books at a time through the bookshelves by selecting 'batch edit', and you may edit the bookshelves that a book is in a bookshelf too beneath the 'shelves' column. This is all in the browser version... I have no idea how to use the mobile app. It may not be intuitive but I hope this helps.
I can back you up on the load time. I'm a server/infrastructure (specifically in the cloud realm) and I have spent 20 hours on a single call over a job taking 1.7 extra seconds to load. This was something that was caught in a Dev environment so once it went to production this would have been huge.
So immediately after i watched this video I went over to GoodReads (mobile) to add Daniel as a friend and I couldn't find the option to do so. After I finally found out how, I followed him for the moment and now my feed is flooded with over 100 messages that individually list Daniel's accepted friend requests that take too long to scroll through because of lagging. So yeah I think I agree on this one Daniel.
A couple of things I found confusing when I first started using Goodreads: The suggested books titles aren't clickable, only their cover pics. Sometimes it's hard to know who's review this is. Also apparently I can't search for a specific person's review of a specific book. If I want to know what someone thought of a book, I need to go to the book's page and scroll forever and hopefully find their review. The Feed and notifications are all over the place and can't be managed or customized. The comment and reply thing also drives me crazy. No nesting of replies? No @ing? Latest comments on top? I know I'm comparing it to Facebook or something, but it is "the social media for books". And even Facebook isn't that great of a UI.
I didn't know you took friend requests on goodreads so now I guess I'll have to wait for you to break the website again to accept mine. Great video though. Laughed so much 😂
As someone who’s tried to enter a giveaway on the app, I can say the app is horribly frustrating. For Goodreads, I’ve also wondered why they haven’t changed their search engine. It could use way more filters. Filters like POV, triggers, and genre, would really enhance the searches if you’re not looking for a specific book and just looking for something new to read. I would personally use it more if I could use it to narrow it down to the books I prefer.
Perfect timing! I finally got around to making a GoodReads account a couple of days ago and I'm ASTONISHED at the lack of basic functionality on the website (or maybe I just I can't find the options, but that still seems like bad design to me). Besides what you've mentioned, there's no dark mode, I can't search for reviewers (so I had to try to find links to all my fav booktuber's profiles on their channel or videos), and the numbered to-read shelf lacks a drag and drop system. By far the most hilarious thing to happen to me though was when I was trying to add Red, White and Royal Blue, an LGBT romance book, to my to-read shelf, and the only thing that came up in the search results was the KING JAMES BIBLE. Ooof! What are you trying to tell me GoodReads... I'm not a software engineer or anything, I really love the idea behind GoodReads and I'm still going to use it, but I just wanted to throw in my two cents.
You aren't nitpicking, I tried to introduce my sister in law to goodreads, she said it was to hard to navigate from her phone and she was lost. I have gotten that screen on my pc
As a fellow software developer, that might be one of the best software-discussion videos I've seen to date. The combination of something everything who comes to this channel cares about -- books -- and the more "esoteric" world of Software Engineering, certainly helps. But the other part of it is that even in a unscripted, "rambling" video, you go over the points with the clarity of a well-prepared University lecture. Heck, when I was doing Computer Science at University, I've had quite a few lecturers who were significantly less clear than you were in this video. All in all, amazingly done.
Finally someone's speaking what I've been thinking for years! I used to do web design, but have only dabbled in it in the last 17 years. Goodreads looks outdated for when I was doing web design in 2002!
You're so right! On the computer I can easily ask a question on goodreads, but on the pnone... I. CAN. NOT! I hope someone on goodreads sees your video, because we deserve a functioning book app.
Thank you!!! Someone finally made this video. I know nothing about website design, but Goodreads is the worst app to use! I always wonder why they don’t fix it.
When you’re adding a reading update with the app, it takes so much time after you press “done”, that you wonder if you really click it, so you ended up pressing it again... and next thing, you have a duplicate update and no way to delete them 🙄. I think this page has so much potential I love the fact there is a whole network for book lovers like me, but it really could be much better. By the way, I was one of the friend request that you accepted 😜👍. Thanks
To delete it you have to pass by the website and do 5 clicks ahahah 1. Click on the book you have a duplicate notification 2. Scroll down to "My activity" and under "status", click on "Show more". You should see your duplicated activity 3. Click on the % of one of them. Yup, that's a link 4. On the smallest text on the right, you have "Delete this status update" 5. Confirm. You're "back" to your RSS feed of status. Why there? Just because.
Ahh I needed this video! I worked in front end dev only during an internship and it was enough to make me very annoyed with goodreads interface haha. I have to admit though, it felt rewarding to find the Stats button on my own! It's like they tried to hide a treasure for the worthy lol
Just found your channel and thought this was a very old video. I was ready to look for an update video from you or to check what had been fixed by Goodreads after this video had been released. Imagine my surprise.
As a computer engineer who use goodreads I thank you for doing this video. Things with the goodread website have been bugging me for sooooo long!! Good video ^^
I don't have a clue what you are talking about but I will pass this to my son who is currently studying software engineering at university, so thank you, I think!
Awesome. Did not realize you were a software engineer. I’m also a software engineer and I’ve been writing short stories/working on a novel. Reading “Shadows Beneath” at the moment. Excited to see other people sharing both these interests. Anyway though. Ya, good call on some notable concerns. Plus, oh my god you experienced too many issues.
That moment when your favorite book youtuber makes a whole video about your field of study!! I just took a class last quarter about UI/UX design and these points echoed so many points that we learned. I’m definitely going to send this to my professor! Would you happen to have any tips on how to actually get into the UI industry?
I am currently reading the blade itself for the first time and I am about half way through it. with the incredible reputation Daniel gave it I'm excited to finish the book and trilogy
Even as an inexperienced junior developer with very little formal training, that lack of feedback with the loading threw me. I remember my very first project thinking "oh, that's taking a couple of seconds, better just stick in a marquee style progress bar in there while I work on speeding that up".
You are spot on with the instant. These days everything should be done using a framework like React or Angular with asynchronous calls to a REST API when you need the server to handle something. That's what I'd be working on if I had my way but I usually get stuck working with legacy stuff.
I like the fact that when you look up a title if it's part of a series, such as the Malazan series, it will give you reading orders either chronologically or as a new reader.... and the fact that it just catalogues books I've read is good enough for me
I'm a programmer too, but I'm more of the back-end/mobile type, and their app, I'm sorry goodreads, but it sucksssss I'm seriously thinking about doing something on my free time and use their API, but it's quite bureaucratic and a but annoying, but their website is a bit bad too, UI not up to industry standards and honestly a bit ugly, still love them tho!
The other (backend) thing that drive me nuts is the duplicated books. If I add a book to my "to read" shelve, and later I search it and add it to a list, if I don't have the same edition, I have the book twice in my lists!! - The first one as "Wants to read" - The second one as "Read + the list you've added the book to". That drives me nuts.
Amazon has no reason to spend money developing Goodreads. They bought it thinking they'd make money from it and tried to get authors to advertise there -- but authors know that is as effective as burning money in a bonfire. They even tried selling authors really expensive ways to do giveaways, etc. They cannot make money from it -- the proof is that there are VOLUNTEERS working there. They ask you if you want to become a "librarian..." On top of it the rating system is pathetic (a cat walking across a keyboard can leave a rating there), and they're all mixed with reviews in no discernible order. Now they can leave this running, but they won't spend money on it. They're making money hand over fist with advertising on Amazon itself, which ought to be the best place for any author to advertise because people are actively shopping there. And even THAT is full of problems. This is like an abandoned orphan.
Every single time I send out invites to take a group poll I get that error page "Goodreads request took too long." The actions go through, however, I didn't know this the first time I encountered the issue and so I re-sent the invites which basically means I spammed those poor people.
The difference between desktop and mobile site is one of the biggest annoyances for me. I basically only use Goodreads now to record the books I have read and only the ebooks because I have a Kindle and I can update direct from my ereader. Anything else I just don't bother. The mobile site doesn't even allow the user to select the version of the book they are reading. When I am on the go I want to update there and then. Like you I love the idea of Goodreads but they really need to improve the basics to get me back using it in full.
"The age of instant" - As a Software dev working with software connecting wirelessly to devices that can sometimes just decide they don't want to communicate in good time (or we install somewhere with godawful reception)... I feel the pain of this expectation.
Even as an amateur developer, I agree with everything you said. How in the world do they not notice these things? These are also so easy to fix that they literally have no reason not to.
There actually is a new book social website out for beta right now. I can't remember what it's called at the moment, but it allows you to transfer all your books from book reads over to it.
I actually like Goodreads design as it is currently, I find it much easier to consume information as opposed to Twitter and Google's new design that is mostly whitespace. That said they do need to improve batch execution in some places.
I’m an apprentice in software/web development and just put on a couple of these videos while doing some pretty dull content migration tasks at work. Didn’t expect to accidentally have something actually educational on that’ll help me in my job lol
If you are looking for another great author, I am surprised that you have not read, or at least mentioned Dean Koontz, his "Odd Thomas" and "Frankenstein" series (a modern take on the classic book) are phenomenal! There is a reason why he has had so many best selling books!
Writing comments as I watch the video. Before going into this, I'm a 4th year Computer Science student with experience working for a big name tech company I will keep redacted (now, I worked in QA mostly and worked on benchmarking scripts I've had experience working on a project that deals with UI and backend and whatnot). On bringing up notifications: Yes, search algorithms are advanced enough today that even in web development a website shouldn't load that slowly. Also, bringing up notifications could (and probably should) have a page limit (such that it only loads a certain amount and if you want to scroll down it loads more for you) On load screens: I haven't done much web dev stuff to back you up on this, but I mostly agree with your points The "Goodreads request took too long" screen: Yeesh. Big yeesh. Extreme big yeesh. Well, it broke again. Great. "The raw aesthetic is a giant bandaid": I agree. It is boring and does not look good from a design standpoint. I personally like the iOS app a little better as it has a sleeker design and everything is more compact and easier to browse (also I haven't been in a place to actually need to use the web version).
So true. I have repeatedly had to google things I'd expect to be intuitive, like how to create another shelf. But if we're going to talk about mobile formatting, we have to talk about Plex. 😱
i find managing my books on the shelfs super awkward... i tried to remove books i had read from my "to read" shelf and simultaneously also removed it from my "read" list? it was really weird and made me lose my reading challenge last year since i didnt remember all the books' names so i couldnt put them back on... :(
I use the android app for most of the time, to update what I'm reading etc, the search algorithm is BAD, and you can't change the edition of the book on android (you can on ios), the only way to do it is scan the book barcode then it comes up with the right edition, but I don't always have the physical book so I have to go on desktop just to change it if it's an audio or ebook.
At 10:58 theres another example of terrible UI design. The empty friends request page doesnt have enough content anymore to keep the footer at the bottom so its just floating in the middle of the page. You can fix this with like one line of css
Aaaaaaand that is one reason why I am not on Goodreads. Tried to use it a few years ago. Got frustrated and said screw it! That and the idea of going back and reviewing all my past reads is daunting at this point.
Software cool, I did not know that, I am gong to be taking the AWS Certified Sysops Administrator Associates exam this week, sounds like somebody at Goodreads needs to work on that
I think the problem is that Amazon probably has no incentive to improve upon the website. The market for book review websites is not as competitive as other media like movies, music etc. There are no rival sights that people can go to instead (at least none that are well known.
Yo Dan you could use darkreader app as a way to reduce glare. Or TH-cam Dark mode. Also there is a Google dark theme called Morpheus. As you can see I hate white screens one for showing dust as it annoys me due to ocpt and also hurts my eyes.
The process of finding all the Witcher books to add them to my want to read was truly painful, I ended up just googling (title of book) good reads because the Goodreads search sucks so much
I tried using Goodreads for a very short time some years ago. Sad to see it hasn’t improved since then. If it were only half as good as what Letterboxd is for films, I would start using it in a heartbeat.
the app is so annoying too! I have to press a notification like 10 times in multiple locations for it to finally go away. Another book website and app that is super glitchy and annoying is barnes & noble website. Both are suuuuuuuper finicky and it's such a struggle to use.
"Good job, Goodreads. You are debatably functional." - Daniel My husband is a front end engineer, so I understood everything you're talking about. I think if he ever used Goodreads, it would break him a little bit, haha. He would-he would be so confused and distraught at how severely out of date Goodreads is.
Updating a book's progress in the app is also a NIGHTMARE! the 'finished' button is in the middle of the screen and it does not save your progress, it marks the book ad finished... To save progress you have to click the small text in the top corner of the screen.
THANK YOU! I love the idea of good reads, but how in the world does an idea with so much good backing get executed so poorly? Even something as simple as being able to rate a book 1-5 stars is needlessly complex.
I want to reiterate, I love GoodReads and want them to do better!
I totally agree! I love the site - a place for readers and writers to chat about books is always great - but the site itself is terribly designed
The website and app Letterboxd is similar to Goodreads but for films and its design is amazing and I can barely use Goodreads because I'm used to the better Letterboxd
I love you too Daniel
*reiterate
August yeah letterboxd is super aesthetic and actually works well unlike goodreads
++
"I feel like I'm on a website from 2008." The website looks identical to when I joined in 2009 so... can confirm.
... it's identical to when my mom joined in 2006... sooooooooooooo.... yeah
There is also their search engine. If I don't write the exact title in its entirty, the poor thing gets so confused, and suggests the weirdest things. I recently started The Children of Men, and when you write that title except the last N it suggests The Bible, Alice in Wonderland, a spanish edition of a Jack London book and others that are NOT The Children of Men, unless you write the whole title...
On mine if I'm not paying attention and type too far my actual book disappears. Noticed it again with Mansfield Park. Type in Mansf and it pops up, add an i and Goodreads is like 'nope nothing like that exists.' All the way to Mansfield Park Jane Austi it's like 'quit expecting me to recognize self published drivel' add the n 'oh okay I have that and five other random books.'
@@stormydavis5860 it's hilarious how bad it is 😂
I have given up, I just use ISBN when I try to find a specific book 😂
I agree with the search feature. I type fast, so I will see a book as I’m typing pop up, but by the time I stop, it’s gone because it doesn’t recognize partial words. 🤦🏻♀️
I just tried this and I can't believe you weren't lying.
Also, they don't allow half stars. Why not?
Pretzel as a proponent of a 5 star system I like this. I like the minimalist aspect of 5 stars.
Yep. I hate when 4 stars it too little and 5 stars is too much.
I don't really care about ratings that much so whatever.
Cause you can just make up your mind and pick one
@afootineachworld um yes, you can. I know there are in betweens, that's what 1-10 is for. Goodreads isnt 1-10, its five stars. Just pick one. That's such a nitpick
09 RetsamEdalb There really is an in between for star ratings. It’s a fine distinction in reviews. It would also probably screw up the rating system GoodReads has, which is why they don’t allow it.
As a (often) non-english-reader I HATE that you can‘t select a language in the editions-list of a book. I have to scroll through ALL editions to find for example the german edition of a book and I have to pay attention to the listed language while scrolling because cover and/or title are often the same as the english one and the language is not very noticable 🤦♀️😒
Regina D if you have the app you might want to try scanning your books. Normally it will take you to the right edition (if it’s on goodreads, but you won’t find that edition any other way either on goodreads so that doesn’t really matter)
Yes, the scan-function works pretty good for this 😊 I always use it if i have the book on hand, but I also use my goodreads „to-read“-list as an „i‘m interested in this book“-list, so i often don‘t have the physical book, or when I‘m reading the ebook or listen to the audio-book, i can‘t scan them 😕
@@reginad91 i find that typing in the ISBN number is the easiest way to find a book cover the quickest (that is assuming you can access the number)
I love and hate Goodreads so much. I have been trying to figure out how turn off seeing "your friend has become friend with this person" for years.
This drives me nuts! I thought maybe it was buried somewhere and have spend significant time trying to figure out how to turn it off🤦🏼♀️
@@chelsikay13 Me too! At this point I am pretty sure there is no way. I just don't care about that and it clutters my timeline.
😭😭😭
Me too
As a professional web developer this was great. The part where you tried to click the logo after the fail and it wasn’t a link had me rolling. 😂
I couldn't agree more!
Also,
* I find that I can't see my reading stats at all on my android application.
* I tried adding a book (ASOIAF #1, leatherbound Harper Collins) I couldn''t because someone already registered the ISBN number but did a very poor job of uploading the picture, information or anything useful. And I can't request a fix for that number either.
* There's only 1 version of ASOIAF #2, I have 2 different versions that are just not available, the version on is is 150 pages off mine in page count.
* The reading stats, one of the most fun parts of this website are truly appaling at best. You update pages but the total pages just gets added after you finish the book, not live. The menu is so far hidden on the site too.
* Switching books from "want to read" to my self made shelf "In Collection" (why isn't that an option anyways) and I had to switch them from want to read to in collection manually, one by one through 4 different loaded pages. You cannot select multiple books at a time nor can you change the shelf they're in in the page that shows your list of books.
And lastly:
* I got all 150 messages of Daniel accepting the people in this video seperately. So I had to scroll 150 messages back to see my friends updates. seriously?!
Hey, for the 2nd asterisk there is a group with the 'Librarians' called 'Goodreads Librarians Group' where you may requests edits for books already in their system. 3rd asterisk you may add editions manually (asin/isbn may be omitted if they for some reason share one, and its already in their system). 5th asteriks .. if I understand correctly you may edit the functionality of a bookshelve(s) to exclusive so that when you add it to one of the exclusive selves it removes it from the previous one it was in automatically, you may edit multiple books at a time through the bookshelves by selecting 'batch edit', and you may edit the bookshelves that a book is in a bookshelf too beneath the 'shelves' column. This is all in the browser version... I have no idea how to use the mobile app. It may not be intuitive but I hope this helps.
The entirety of booktube probably agrees with everything in this video. (and all the other users as well...) Haha
I can back you up on the load time. I'm a server/infrastructure (specifically in the cloud realm) and I have spent 20 hours on a single call over a job taking 1.7 extra seconds to load. This was something that was caught in a Dev environment so once it went to production this would have been huge.
So immediately after i watched this video I went over to GoodReads (mobile) to add Daniel as a friend and I couldn't find the option to do so. After I finally found out how, I followed him for the moment and now my feed is flooded with over 100 messages that individually list Daniel's accepted friend requests that take too long to scroll through because of lagging. So yeah I think I agree on this one Daniel.
I wanted add him as a friend too, but I can't figure out how to do it on the mobile app. How do you do it?
I showed this to my husband who is a full stack developer and he looked so sad and confused as to how the website was this bad. 😅
I always ask myself why I don't use goodreads more frequently... and then I actually use it and I always remember 😓
A couple of things I found confusing when I first started using Goodreads:
The suggested books titles aren't clickable, only their cover pics.
Sometimes it's hard to know who's review this is.
Also apparently I can't search for a specific person's review of a specific book. If I want to know what someone thought of a book, I need to go to the book's page and scroll forever and hopefully find their review.
The Feed and notifications are all over the place and can't be managed or customized.
The comment and reply thing also drives me crazy. No nesting of replies? No @ing? Latest comments on top?
I know I'm comparing it to Facebook or something, but it is "the social media for books". And even Facebook isn't that great of a UI.
This...sounds horrible lol
So will we now getting website design reviews now. 😃
I wouldn't mind.
It’s book related! He gets a pass.
@@evawoods324 me neither. :D
I'm surprisingly on board with this
I actually enjoyed this review😂
I didn't know you took friend requests on goodreads so now I guess I'll have to wait for you to break the website again to accept mine.
Great video though. Laughed so much 😂
Someone had to do it. Thank you for doing it. Hopefully they listen and improve.
Really enjoyed this - as a software developer, this hit my heart strings.
The love hate relationship I have with that website is astonishing.
As someone who’s tried to enter a giveaway on the app, I can say the app is horribly frustrating.
For Goodreads, I’ve also wondered why they haven’t changed their search engine. It could use way more filters. Filters like POV, triggers, and genre, would really enhance the searches if you’re not looking for a specific book and just looking for something new to read. I would personally use it more if I could use it to narrow it down to the books I prefer.
yeah, maybe some hashtags like the fanfic sites use could be really cool... just some more information about the book apart from the blurb.
Perfect timing! I finally got around to making a GoodReads account a couple of days ago and I'm ASTONISHED at the lack of basic functionality on the website (or maybe I just I can't find the options, but that still seems like bad design to me). Besides what you've mentioned, there's no dark mode, I can't search for reviewers (so I had to try to find links to all my fav booktuber's profiles on their channel or videos), and the numbered to-read shelf lacks a drag and drop system. By far the most hilarious thing to happen to me though was when I was trying to add Red, White and Royal Blue, an LGBT romance book, to my to-read shelf, and the only thing that came up in the search results was the KING JAMES BIBLE. Ooof! What are you trying to tell me GoodReads...
I'm not a software engineer or anything, I really love the idea behind GoodReads and I'm still going to use it, but I just wanted to throw in my two cents.
Goodreads is actually looking for software development engineers
I wouldn't touch the codebase for this with a 10ft pole
I feel like a day spent on stack exchange with a couple of people could help amazingly
Has it got better?
You aren't nitpicking, I tried to introduce my sister in law to goodreads, she said it was to hard to navigate from her phone and she was lost. I have gotten that screen on my pc
Yeah I hate there ui. Glad someone is talking about it! I hope they add preloaders.
Their
@@whitealliance9540 Human Alliance
@@HarveyGinger what is a human alliance?
@@whitealliance9540 one that's not just white
@@HarveyGinger i think you should be asking me what a white alliance is...
As a fellow software developer, that might be one of the best software-discussion videos I've seen to date. The combination of something everything who comes to this channel cares about -- books -- and the more "esoteric" world of Software Engineering, certainly helps.
But the other part of it is that even in a unscripted, "rambling" video, you go over the points with the clarity of a well-prepared University lecture. Heck, when I was doing Computer Science at University, I've had quite a few lecturers who were significantly less clear than you were in this video.
All in all, amazingly done.
Finally someone's speaking what I've been thinking for years! I used to do web design, but have only dabbled in it in the last 17 years. Goodreads looks outdated for when I was doing web design in 2002!
I'm so glad you made this video. Goodreads drives me insane. In fact, I have mostly stopped using it because I cannot stand its clunkiness.
You're so right! On the computer I can easily ask a question on goodreads, but on the pnone... I. CAN. NOT! I hope someone on goodreads sees your video, because we deserve a functioning book app.
When i have 800+ wishlist books and if I want to do clean up I have to eliminate them one by one 😐🔫
Thank you!!! Someone finally made this video. I know nothing about website design, but Goodreads is the worst app to use! I always wonder why they don’t fix it.
When you’re adding a reading update with the app, it takes so much time after you press “done”, that you wonder if you really click it, so you ended up pressing it again... and next thing, you have a duplicate update and no way to delete them 🙄.
I think this page has so much potential I love the fact there is a whole network for book lovers like me, but it really could be much better.
By the way, I was one of the friend request that you accepted 😜👍. Thanks
To delete it you have to pass by the website and do 5 clicks ahahah
1. Click on the book you have a duplicate notification
2. Scroll down to "My activity" and under "status", click on "Show more". You should see your duplicated activity
3. Click on the % of one of them. Yup, that's a link
4. On the smallest text on the right, you have "Delete this status update"
5. Confirm.
You're "back" to your RSS feed of status. Why there? Just because.
Émilie thanks! 😀. I rarely use the website version, at least I know now how to do it.
Ahh I needed this video! I worked in front end dev only during an internship and it was enough to make me very annoyed with goodreads interface haha. I have to admit though, it felt rewarding to find the Stats button on my own! It's like they tried to hide a treasure for the worthy lol
Just found your channel and thought this was a very old video. I was ready to look for an update video from you or to check what had been fixed by Goodreads after this video had been released. Imagine my surprise.
As a computer engineer who use goodreads I thank you for doing this video. Things with the goodread website have been bugging me for sooooo long!!
Good video ^^
I don't have a clue what you are talking about but I will pass this to my son who is currently studying software engineering at university, so thank you, I think!
Awesome. Did not realize you were a software engineer. I’m also a software engineer and I’ve been writing short stories/working on a novel. Reading “Shadows Beneath” at the moment. Excited to see other people sharing both these interests. Anyway though. Ya, good call on some notable concerns. Plus, oh my god you experienced too many issues.
That moment when your favorite book youtuber makes a whole video about your field of study!!
I just took a class last quarter about UI/UX design and these points echoed so many points that we learned. I’m definitely going to send this to my professor!
Would you happen to have any tips on how to actually get into the UI industry?
I am currently reading the blade itself for the first time and I am about half way through it. with the incredible reputation Daniel gave it I'm excited to finish the book and trilogy
Goodreads takes us for granted. -_-
Even as an inexperienced junior developer with very little formal training, that lack of feedback with the loading threw me. I remember my very first project thinking "oh, that's taking a couple of seconds, better just stick in a marquee style progress bar in there while I work on speeding that up".
I am SO GLAD someone with an audience has concisely expressed my angst at the GoodReads Mobile app. Thank you, Daniel!!!!!
As a product manager at a software company, I appreciated this video a lot. Thanks!
I am a Native Mobile Software Developer and their Android app makes me cry 😭
You are spot on with the instant. These days everything should be done using a framework like React or Angular with asynchronous calls to a REST API when you need the server to handle something.
That's what I'd be working on if I had my way but I usually get stuck working with legacy stuff.
My friends and I are working on something similar to GoodReads. Your video has given us a major boost in confidence. Thank you :)
I like the fact that when you look up a title if it's part of a series, such as the Malazan series, it will give you reading orders either chronologically or as a new reader.... and the fact that it just catalogues books I've read is good enough for me
I'm a programmer too, but I'm more of the back-end/mobile type, and their app, I'm sorry goodreads, but it sucksssss I'm seriously thinking about doing something on my free time and use their API, but it's quite bureaucratic and a but annoying, but their website is a bit bad too, UI not up to industry standards and honestly a bit ugly, still love them tho!
As a learning developer, this is incredibly informative and interesting. Great video!
Yay, I am so excited you are readinh Prince of Fools!
I really love Goodreads and use it a lot but it took so long to figure out and a lot of things are frustrating about it
The other (backend) thing that drive me nuts is the duplicated books.
If I add a book to my "to read" shelve, and later I search it and add it to a list, if I don't have the same edition, I have the book twice in my lists!!
- The first one as "Wants to read"
- The second one as "Read + the list you've added the book to".
That drives me nuts.
As a fellow IT dude (hardware/OS support), I feel you.
Amazon has no reason to spend money developing Goodreads. They bought it thinking they'd make money from it and tried to get authors to advertise there -- but authors know that is as effective as burning money in a bonfire. They even tried selling authors really expensive ways to do giveaways, etc. They cannot make money from it -- the proof is that there are VOLUNTEERS working there. They ask you if you want to become a "librarian..."
On top of it the rating system is pathetic (a cat walking across a keyboard can leave a rating there), and they're all mixed with reviews in no discernible order.
Now they can leave this running, but they won't spend money on it. They're making money hand over fist with advertising on Amazon itself, which ought to be the best place for any author to advertise because people are actively shopping there. And even THAT is full of problems.
This is like an abandoned orphan.
Part of me will always love Goodreads and I am glad it exists, but then again I've never considered any of this before! It's excellent! Great points!!
An update to this + alternatives as a video?
Ah! "Responsive design." What an innovative concept.
Every single time I send out invites to take a group poll I get that error page "Goodreads request took too long."
The actions go through, however, I didn't know this the first time I encountered the issue and so I re-sent the invites which basically means I spammed those poor people.
Lol! I’m a UAT tester and I see what you’re talking about. Defects everywhere!
The difference between desktop and mobile site is one of the biggest annoyances for me. I basically only use Goodreads now to record the books I have read and only the ebooks because I have a Kindle and I can update direct from my ereader. Anything else I just don't bother. The mobile site doesn't even allow the user to select the version of the book they are reading. When I am on the go I want to update there and then. Like you I love the idea of Goodreads but they really need to improve the basics to get me back using it in full.
"The age of instant" - As a Software dev working with software connecting wirelessly to devices that can sometimes just decide they don't want to communicate in good time (or we install somewhere with godawful reception)... I feel the pain of this expectation.
One time I tried to log out of Goodreads and it told me the page didn't exist
LOL I thought something was wrong with my computer until you mentioned loading your profile took 8 seconds. Same lol.
Modal windows are your friend.
Responsive layout is a must!
Even as an amateur developer, I agree with everything you said. How in the world do they not notice these things? These are also so easy to fix that they literally have no reason not to.
He's a lighteyes.
There actually is a new book social website out for beta right now. I can't remember what it's called at the moment, but it allows you to transfer all your books from book reads over to it.
th-cam.com/video/zMiJDv265kA/w-d-xo.html
This video talks all about the new site!
Thanks! I have the exact same problem with loading etc. and I thought that error is on my side (bad wifi conection or something like that)
I actually like Goodreads design as it is currently, I find it much easier to consume information as opposed to Twitter and Google's new design that is mostly whitespace. That said they do need to improve batch execution in some places.
Check out Bookly! That’s how I keep track of my reading and I MUCH prefer it to Goodreads. It’s intuitive and very aesthetically pleasing!
as a software developer and book lover, i love this video too much
As a UI designer myself i wholeheartedly agree!
I’m an apprentice in software/web development and just put on a couple of these videos while doing some pretty dull content migration tasks at work. Didn’t expect to accidentally have something actually educational on that’ll help me in my job lol
If you are looking for another great author, I am surprised that you have not read, or at least mentioned Dean Koontz, his "Odd Thomas" and "Frankenstein" series (a modern take on the classic book) are phenomenal! There is a reason why he has had so many best selling books!
Writing comments as I watch the video. Before going into this, I'm a 4th year Computer Science student with experience working for a big name tech company I will keep redacted (now, I worked in QA mostly and worked on benchmarking scripts I've had experience working on a project that deals with UI and backend and whatnot).
On bringing up notifications: Yes, search algorithms are advanced enough today that even in web development a website shouldn't load that slowly. Also, bringing up notifications could (and probably should) have a page limit (such that it only loads a certain amount and if you want to scroll down it loads more for you)
On load screens: I haven't done much web dev stuff to back you up on this, but I mostly agree with your points
The "Goodreads request took too long" screen: Yeesh. Big yeesh. Extreme big yeesh. Well, it broke again. Great.
"The raw aesthetic is a giant bandaid": I agree. It is boring and does not look good from a design standpoint.
I personally like the iOS app a little better as it has a sleeker design and everything is more compact and easier to browse (also I haven't been in a place to actually need to use the web version).
So true. I have repeatedly had to google things I'd expect to be intuitive, like how to create another shelf. But if we're going to talk about mobile formatting, we have to talk about Plex. 😱
i find managing my books on the shelfs super awkward... i tried to remove books i had read from my "to read" shelf and simultaneously also removed it from my "read" list? it was really weird and made me lose my reading challenge last year since i didnt remember all the books' names so i couldnt put them back on... :(
I love these sorts of videos
I use the android app for most of the time, to update what I'm reading etc, the search algorithm is BAD, and you can't change the edition of the book on android (you can on ios), the only way to do it is scan the book barcode then it comes up with the right edition, but I don't always have the physical book so I have to go on desktop just to change it if it's an audio or ebook.
At 10:58 theres another example of terrible UI design. The empty friends request page doesnt have enough content anymore to keep the footer at the bottom so its just floating in the middle of the page. You can fix this with like one line of css
As a software engineer, this video is actually really fun to watch dude, I love you even more now XD
Aaaaaaand that is one reason why I am not on Goodreads.
Tried to use it a few years ago. Got frustrated and said screw it!
That and the idea of going back and reviewing all my past reads is daunting at this point.
hey, this video was a little quiet! the content was great though, you're speaking my mind. lots of love!!
IT student here and i also agree the UI is absolutely horrendous. And the search feature is absolutely infuriating to use.
Software cool, I did not know that, I am gong to be taking the AWS Certified Sysops Administrator Associates exam this week, sounds like somebody at Goodreads needs to work on that
In a mobile, you can't even question about books and in laptops adding photos are so tough in book reviews
Exactly!
I tried to "get into" Goodreads, but navigation was too sh***y so I quit.
Twice.
I think the problem is that Amazon probably has no incentive to improve upon the website. The market for book review websites is not as competitive as other media like movies, music etc. There are no rival sights that people can go to instead (at least none that are well known.
Yo Dan you could use darkreader app as a way to reduce glare. Or TH-cam Dark mode. Also there is a Google dark theme called Morpheus. As you can see I hate white screens one for showing dust as it annoys me due to ocpt and also hurts my eyes.
I’m co-signing everything you said here. I love goodreads and I wish they would improve the functionality.
I love goodreads. I've been using it for 8years. And you have a very good point.
The process of finding all the Witcher books to add them to my want to read was truly painful, I ended up just googling (title of book) good reads because the Goodreads search sucks so much
I tried using Goodreads for a very short time some years ago. Sad to see it hasn’t improved since then. If it were only half as good as what Letterboxd is for films, I would start using it in a heartbeat.
the app is so annoying too! I have to press a notification like 10 times in multiple locations for it to finally go away. Another book website and app that is super glitchy and annoying is barnes & noble website. Both are suuuuuuuper finicky and it's such a struggle to use.
Also, not having official book titles so that when you search a book, just one copy of it shows up and not 200 with different title covers
Dude, I'm a designer and the UI of GoodReads haunts me every time I go there.
"Good job, Goodreads. You are debatably functional." - Daniel
My husband is a front end engineer, so I understood everything you're talking about. I think if he ever used Goodreads, it would break him a little bit, haha. He would-he would be so confused and distraught at how severely out of date Goodreads is.
I've been a member on Goodreads for over a decade and have never seen them change anything.
Updating a book's progress in the app is also a NIGHTMARE! the 'finished' button is in the middle of the screen and it does not save your progress, it marks the book ad finished... To save progress you have to click the small text in the top corner of the screen.
As a software engineer myself, I totally agree with you. So many serious problems that there is no excuse for their existance
THANK YOU! I love the idea of good reads, but how in the world does an idea with so much good backing get executed so poorly? Even something as simple as being able to rate a book 1-5 stars is needlessly complex.