BJ Lillis > Status Update

Goodreads UI/UX is atrocious for how popular this app is

I didn’t even know about this option. Where is the notify me of comments box?

AP wrote: "I didn’t even know about this option. Where is the notify me of comments box?"

It's below the comments themselves if you're on the page for the review itself. If you're looking at reviews on the book page, it's not there, which is, again, mind numbingly absurd.

AP wrote: "Goodreads UI/UX is atrocious for how popular this app is"

Before this recent change to notification settings, I actually didn't mind how old fashioned goodreads was. A lot of the "improvements" other social media sites have made aren't really improvements at all, and I find goodread's desktop site very usable. (For the same reason that old.reddit.com is *still* somehow a more satisfying way to use reddit on desktop than the new version.) The goodreads iphone app needs some work, for sure... But this change getting rid of email notifications (why even!?) and making it so hard to subscribe to comment notifications is incredibly annoying...

I also don't get any mails withe friends' reviews anymore - months ago, GR told me they were fixing the issue, but it's pretty clear by now that these are strategies to keep us longer on the website. Jeff Bezos, you're horrible!

Goodreads has been abandoned, just like wastelands. (And it is not an app, it is far older than apps. It started as a platform, a site and only later an app. The app is atrocious I never use it even on mobile, it's browser and on desktop mode).

It is annoying, it has been abandoned, but on the other hand, it has crazy old school old fashioned treasures that modern "apps" do not have, like chronological feed and being able to customize shelves and search multiple shelves. I just wish they did not fuck up what worked..

They only care about awards, newsletters and "challenges" I guess to be able to sell newsletter ads and award long list placements.

Meike wrote: "I also don't get any mails withe friends' reviews anymore - months ago, GR told me they were fixing the issue, but it's pretty clear by now that these are strategies to keep us longer on the websit..."

It's so annoying!

Hirondelle (not getting notifications) wrote: "It is annoying, it has been abandoned, but on the other hand, it has crazy old school old fashioned treasures that modern "apps" do not have, like chronological feed and being able to customize shelves and search multiple shelves. I just wish they did not fuck up what worked.."

I agree with this 100%. As much as I'm complaining, the truth is that goodreads has a real sense of being a community that reminds me a lot of online communities from the 2000s, and probably part of the reason for that community surviving into these grim 2020s is that they've sort of left the platform alone! I enjoy going on Instagram, but I feel *no* sense of community at all there compared to here! Guess here's hoping they continue walking that line of just functional enough to keep people around without "entshittifying" it, to use Cory Doctorow's term, to the point that it becomes unusable from too *much* tinkering and "optimizing," instead of too little!

I've spent much of today manually clicking every single box of my old review. And I have a lot of old reviews.

The thing about these Goodreads decisions is that I just can't get them. I have no idea how they could even theoretically benefit anyone. It's no better than blowing your toes off with a handgun. Why?

I can't manage instagram, the random feed, and them showing algorithm stuff, that I really do not want to see. I love the chronological feed (ah, I remember when instagram had it) because I can scroll down to a book or review I remember seeing before, it's not that randomnness where you are not following what people are actually doing and you might miss something which interests you (and some people whose opinions on books I really want to follow got no likes apart from, uh, me...), like oh this person finished this book...

There was an interesting article in the Atlantic, by Conor Friedersdorf called "Why I Hate Instagram Now" (it's more subtle than that title) that I read a while ago and it puts the finger on some of my issues with instagram and why I kind of soft faded using it, the thing of algorithms trying to throw more and more impressive (but remote, unrelated) things at you rather than the things you actually want to see, connect with. My brain functions better with this honestly..

Hirondelle (not getting notifications) wrote: "I can't manage instagram, the random feed, and them showing algorithm stuff, that I really do not want to see. I love the chronological feed (ah, I remember when instagram had it) because I can scr..."

I agree more or less completely! I do enjoy spending 15 or 20 minutes on instagram, but it tires me out pretty quickly.

Happens to me constantly, too. Makes you look incredibly rude, so annoying.

Juho wrote: "I've spent much of today manually clicking every single box of my old review. And I have a lot of old reviews.

The thing about these Goodreads decisions is that I just can't get them. I have no id..."

I did this yesterday! Manually clicking all my old reviews! And uncovered some comments I hadn't seen in the process, of course... I really do wonder what the internal situation is, like for the employees. Is it just, like, chaos? Is there a business logic I'm not seeing? Or is there some kind of logic based on internal workplace dynamics (everyone just trying to keep the one unhinged boss happy, that kind of thing, which is so common I'm afraid...)

Alexander wrote: "Happens to me constantly, too. Makes you look incredibly rude, so annoying."

Exactly!

I can only speak for myself, but it appears GR's data center is unable to handle the load so downsizing features on the GR app was the first move. And its not surprising given the width and breadth of the data

Jonathan wrote: "I can only speak for myself, but it appears GR's data center is unable to handle the load so downsizing features on the GR app was the first move. And its not surprising given the width and breadth..."

Well, that actually makes sense, doesn't it... Sad, but at least comprehensible. I guess goodreads probably does cost quite a bit to run and while I believe it must move a *lot* of books overall, most of that money doesn't wind up at Amazon, I suppose...