We launched a new interface for adding books to your shelves last week. You should now find it much easier to add books to your to-read shelf, or add a book to multiple shelves at once - both highly requested features!

A quick usability study:

Problems with the old shelves UI were:
- Members often didn't understand that a book had to be on one of three default shelves (read, to-read, currently-reading)
- Members often didn't know they could create their own shelves
- To add a book to the 'to-read' shelf (our most popular shelf by far) it took several clicks

The new solution:
- A new dropdown that visually makes clear that the default shelves are exclusive and others are not.
- The new dropdown also makes adding a new shelf much more apparent
- A hover menu over the 'add to my books' button that easily with one click lets members choose read, to-read, or currently-reading.

Note: Some tag-savvy members sometime ask why we didn't just call our shelves tags - after all, they are essentially the same thing, with a slightly more constricted interface. The answer is that tags are just still not mainstream. They are getting more so, but why make it confusing for the 70% of the popular that doesn't know what a tag is - when they all know what a shelf is?

New hover menu to easily add a book:


New "dropdown" to edit shelves:


Old add/edit shelf dropdown:


posted by Otis on June, 11