BookYap

I like the idea of the categories at the bottom, but it is quite overwhelming to see all those buttons. I wonder if some kind of "Find me a book Wizard" type approach would work better. Something like a 1 question at a time, 3 question survey perhaps.

An author search vs. title search might not be a bad idea, although it takes a bit of the simplicity out. Just think of someone searching "King" - should they get both Stephen King books and "King Kong" for example?

The design is nice but it feels like it just kind of fades into space at the bottom. I might see what you can do between the buttons and the footer information, or maybe expand the footer to have a little more excitement in it.

I love your design so much but i think you should work on the buttons a little bit and make the hover status for all buttons.

and if you but some logos for sign-up and login at the top in navigation

Cool website, i can guess it took awhile to make it.

My 2 cents is just as maintained before, add more interactivity whit the buttons. Hovers are a great and simple way of doing it.

I as well want to point out at the browse page of the books you got a drop down menu at the top that doesn't use those cool icons you got for each category.

Add the icons in that drop down menu and it will make a Hugh different to that particular section.

Overall it's a really nice design. Good impact, nice use of color and just enough fun to make it engaging.

I agree with the buttons on the home page though, pretty overwhelming. A big fat dropdown might be a better and cleaner way of solving this.

The handwritten font is cool but it feels out of place by itself like that on the home page. Once you see the other pages it makes sense. Maybe try to get it in one more time on the home page? Maybe the word "best"?

Only other thing is the sidebar being on the left on the search results page and then going on the right for the product details page is uncomfortable. I think this should be consistently on the right.

Really nice work. Love the synergy between the logo and the search bar styling.

Hi Hallie,

Love this design so far jus needs a minor tweek or two. If I were you I'd lose the vast array of buttons and replace them with simpler list with fewer categories (that will fit on one line) i'd also put a jQuery dropdown menu on the search box, that filters as the user types. Really like the live figures give a real impression of activity happening on the site, rather than an estimated figure - which could just be made up.

Love the filter on the search result looks really good! Keep up the good work!

I like the top design, but ditch the bottom buttons. If people are there to search for books, they either know what they are looking for right off, or intergrate the search for books to include any possible outcome. Such as if someone were to search "Comedy" then all comedy books would come up. Take a cue from Google. Simple is better.

Don't muck it up with a ton of choices. Look at Netflix too. Their site is simple, concise and their search feature works. Sidebar, or drop menu of categories would work better, AFTER, someone gets to the internal results pages.

Maybe add some suggestions like Netflix does, or a "You may also like..." type of area within the search result pages.

But like I said. Keep the top, lose the bottom buttons, Kind of disjointed. A simple search feature is the best way to do this. If you are hard pressed for the Categories, a 2 search area would work great. 1 text box for the "title" and a search for the "category". Content stating search by "Title" and/or "Category" then the search button below that.

But great top design.

Hi Hallie,

I love your idea to help users find a next book to read. It happens to all of us that we are stuck and don't know what to read next.

As much as I like the simplicity of your design it does not offer the user experience it should be offering.

1. Why search input? If user knows what he/she is looking for they would use Google or Amazon search box. So IMHO you are loosing so much of your edge and USP by offering in the first place something of no value to the users.

2. The search which would have value is hidden below and presented in a very long and overwhelming listing which is difficult to scan.

3. Other cool filtering options are also hidden on the search result page. Of course they should be there but unless you make a prospect try other way of searching he/she will never even see this page.

4. I like the real time AJAX features but they also tend to get a little in the way and not react as smooth as they should.

Taking all those issues into consideration I would suggest redesign of user experience flow. Your site should show it's true potential of a real problem solver at once.

Hope this helps. Shall you have any questions feel free to drop me a line.

Keep up the good work.

Cheers!

Michael

(user experience designer & strategis)