Hey! Stop changing things unless you're actually making them better!

Okay, the new product interface is certainly less cluttered, but it also makes less sense than before. There is no discernible logic to the interface and workflow. From the shopkeeper's perspective, it should really be pretty straightforward:

1. Upload a new product
2. Select the materials it can be printed in
3. Add the markup
4. Add photos and text description
5. Choose a category and shop section
6. Publish

Instead, there's a drop-down box with "Edit product with this model", and then only the one model I'm actually looking at is listed. What on earth is the point? That's just one example.

Come on, folks! You can do better!

This is being done to support variants, so multiple related models can be sold from one upper level product page. It's not clear if in the long run non-variant based products will have the same organizational structure. It would be nice for single model products to default to something closer to the old structure, IMHO, but I don't know if that's what they are planning. Hold on tight for the next few months as these changes get implemented.

+1 to javelin98's post. I don't do variants on my models, so this doesn't help me at all. I'd like to see a return to the old process.

And now we have to upload images one at a time, save at every upload and close the dialog pressing us to share to our followers, kinda needy, still buggy. -S

Unfortunately I have to agree with the topic starter.

Shapeways seems not to bother too much about the designers.
Many many many changes are made to the website without proper testing, let alone wondering whether the new features would be benificial for the designers/shop owners.

You should count the amount of extra clicks to achieve the same results as say a year ago. Even something silly as multiple uploading of photos is disabled by SW. This has been mentioned several times.

Unfortunately SW is not solving their problems as quickly as they create them...

Yes, even little things like "View Product" are now more difficult. In order to see what one of my products looks like to the public, I have to go to the My Models page, find the product, and click on it. But the default link doesn't go to the public-facing page; instead, it goes to the "Upload and Buy" page, same as for the Edit link. Once there, I have to go to the drop down box that says "Edit product with this model" (which doesn't even make grammatical sense!), choose the model, wait for the "Share and Sell" page to load, and then click on the "View Product" button.

If I may make some suggestions to the Shapeways web team:

• The public-facing page should be accessible directly from the My Models page (otherwise, why have both the product link and Edit link, since they point to the same destination?)
• The various tabs on the "backstage" area should all be on one page -- this whole dropdown thing makes no sense whatsoever
• Re-enable the multiple image uploading capability
• Get someone on the team with a background in human factors or accessibility, who can map the navigation experience from the shop owner's point of view
• Stop using java and javascript for things like the Materials selection dropdown -- they play merry hob with some browsers
• Reduce the redundant info on some of those pages. For example, there is the exact same information on the Upload and Buy page as there is under the "Details" tab on that very same page (see attached image)

Overall, the product pages feel jumbled and ad hoc, like there is no overall plan or structure in place. Worst of all, it feels like the web team is experimenting on the pages, since things keep breaking*, using the production server rather than a development server. Having been an IT guy (and web developer) in the past, I know that it's a best practice to do all the testing and breaking of things on a separate, private server before launching any pages onto the publicly-viewable servers.

* For example, I haven't been able to upload pics or choose materials to print in for over a week now. It would sure be nice to get that fixed.



Another issue for the good of the order: when you folks change things like how the categories work, please be aware of the downstream effects. I had dozens of products under the "Miniatures" category, but when you changed to having a non-selectable top-level category (one of which was "Miniatures"), those products suddenly became uncategorized. Now I have to go product by product to ensure everything is in a proper category before they can be sold. Massive waste of time and effort for shop owners.

This.

The present idea may be that slowly introducing features and mechanisms is a lesser blow to users than a massive update, but the bugginess and ergonomic issues should be addressed in a parallel process and reviewed by focus groups, or at the very least by a group of SW employees or beta users that have operational stores so everything ends up being exercised, reviewed, and purged of bugs before release. Is some of this bugginess only being seen if someone is signed up as a beta user? Are non beta users seeing the site the same way? Can we de-beta ourselves to fix some of these bugs?

This stuff seems to happen every year and it always causes heartburn. In my head I envision the server room at Shapeways looking something like this:

https://youtu.be/cvk8Tv38y28

Lol that server room video.
I'll assure you, our server operations are top notch, unlike the current Model edit and selling experiences.

I could tell you how much history there is behind those pages, how rewriting them on a new framework is hard work, how we want to be transparent and move forward, keep you in the loop and release in beta for early adopters (you can "unbeta" yourself account settings). I could tell you how we're running forward on multiple fronts to give you things you've asked for a long time (hi 3D print orientation, Designer For Hire, and refreshed shop settings), and how our team is with you on this and don't feel that proud of the current state of those pages.

Instead, I'll say: I agree with you completely. Things are a bit messy right now as we transition to support variants. I hope you trust me when I say, all the experiences you mention, will be good soon.

I'm sure things will eventually work out for the best. I'm also reminded of an old Chicago proverb.

"You will enjoy your hot dog more if you don't see what goes inside of it at the factory."

Is it too much to hope for a support for "sets" too?

I would love to be able to sell my chess set complete in a single order...

Thank you!
Johan

Yes please there were so many changes where the number of clicks have increased significantly ...

From the "my model" page you have now 3 links to "Edit" but none to "View". The same from the first EDIT page (no view).

Woody64

yup- I like that progress is being made but it sure feels like 2 steps forwards and 3 steps back:

for example I used to display 'not for sale' portfolio work in my creations sections and now they don't show at all- despite being checked to 'display to public'

Agreed with OP, the new UI is very frustrating.

And we have yet an extra problem.

The HTML editing of all our latest products (June 20th and newer) are broken, and seem not repairable.

Can you please fix this very annoying problem?
Can you please FIRST check ANY modification on your website BEFORE implementing them?

You seem to forget that this may be important to the users (your customers).

I just find it out and it's driving me crazy. The more time we lose configuring each model, the less time we have to design new ones, and this is bad for all of us. Now do we need to change all the descriptions, for each model?! This has not any sense...

And nothing has improved so far.....

SW: PLEASE SOLVE THIS MATTER

and some sort of response of SW's side would be very much appreciated ....

So meanwhile the HTML-problems were solved.

BUT BUGS seems to be something that Shapeways is really known for

So again you've a big problem with the webshop.

Now ALL shortlinks do not work. Example: http://shpws.me/LsWJ does not work anymore.

We have an external Website which uses 600+ short links that are all broken.

Can you fix this major problem ASAP?

Or shall we close all webshops for a change?

Regards,
Maurice
RAILNSCALE

Not all the HTML problems are fixed. The HTML being broken is very annoying. If Shapeways were in the software business and they pulled shit like this, they wouldn't be in it for very long. It is a major problem that needs immediate attention.