New Winebid Website

[TimF]

I will admit that the new site is easier to look at past purchases. (Of course, that’s already a breeze in CT…)

[Steve_Saxon]

@Rick Gregory

@Eric LeVine

My recollection is that you used to be able to click on the photo and get a nice zoom which seems to be gone. On the plus side, they no longer have the utterly obnoxious right-click context menu blocked as they did on the old site. Juvenile stuff.

The zoom on a bottle view is still there.

I’m somewhat bemused by comments like Saxon’s as the new site has all of the menu options of the old one as far as I can tell, and doesn’t do the silly crap of duplicating menus.

as I was posting my comments I bet myself that you would be the first one to comment that I was wrong. It must be great being you.

[Alan_Rath]

Where are you guys seeing a new site? To me it looks exactly as it always did. Maybe I’m just not very observant

[Steve_Saxon]

@Alan Rath

Where are you guys seeing a new site? To me it looks exactly as it always did. Maybe I’m just not very observant

At the very top of the home page…and every other page, there’s be a link.

[Eric_LeVine]

@Steve Saxon

there’s be a link.

There IS a link too.

[mikeycook]

My pet peeve is the out-of-date tasting notes. If you’re gonna quote Parker, WS, and Tanzer, at least try to have the most recent note.

[Peter_C]

The Advanced Search feature is gone, no?

[Alan_Rath]

Ah, OK, I see it now. Why in the world would they change it? It’s already one of the better wine sites around. If they want to implement some new features, why not just do it within the framework of the existing site? oh well, it’s their business.

OK, a little more playing, and I absolutely hate it. Hate is too weak a word. The existing site does everything I need. Handles my favorite searches easily. new one I have to keep going back to favorite searches to get to the next one. Results take up more space on the page, so now I have to scroll through possibly multiple pages to see what vintages of a particular wine are listed. Colors are crap. They actually paid someone to advise them to do this? It constantly amazes me how software people can destroy something good in the name of making it “better”.

[Steve_Saxon]

@Alan Rath

Ah, OK, I see it now. Why in the world would they change it? It’s already one of the better wine sites around. If they want to implement some new features, why not just do it within the framework of the existing site? oh well, it’s their business.

OK, a little more playing, and I absolutely hate it. Hate is too weak a word. The existing site does everything I need. Handles my favorite searches easily. new one I have to keep going back to favorite searches to get to the next one. Results take up more space on the page, so now I have to scroll through possibly multiple pages to see what vintages of a particular wine are listed. Colors are crap. They actually paid someone to advise them to do this? It constantly amazes me how software people can destroy something good in the name of making it “better”.

Hey! Leave Eric alone!

[Alan_Rath]

@Steve Saxon

Hey! Leave Eric alone!

Ha ha, I know you’re joking Eric’s new site is a far, far different thing. The new site is far, far better than the old (leaving out some of the continuing development, and a few things that haven’t yet been ported over). Plus I can cut Eric a lot more slack because he’s essentially a one man shop, and not processing millions of dollars in wine sales every month. He’s done a MUCH better job than winebid of moving to a second generation site, presumably on a much thinner budget.

[M_Linzbach]

IMO
Pro’s - Bottle condition in-line display, like the breadcrumb aspects of being able to turn off browse clicks.

Con’s - Fixed width (seriously wasted space on large monitors), too difficult to search based upon criteria (aka advanced search) as it would appear you have to perform a browse feature first, then drill down or un-select items.

New - Reserved price now is listed in addition to Current Bid and Estimate.

Desires - Want the CT / Grape Stories links back so I don’t have to cut and paste as much and would really like someone to develop an iPhone/Droid app for this site.

[Rick_Gregory]

@Steve Saxon

@Rick Gregory

@Eric LeVine

My recollection is that you used to be able to click on the photo and get a nice zoom which seems to be gone. On the plus side, they no longer have the utterly obnoxious right-click context menu blocked as they did on the old site. Juvenile stuff.

The zoom on a bottle view is still there.

I’m somewhat bemused by comments like Saxon’s as the new site has all of the menu options of the old one as far as I can tell, and doesn’t do the silly crap of duplicating menus.

as I was posting my comments I bet myself that you would be the first one to comment that I was wrong. It must be great being you.

I didn’t say you were wrong - quit being such a sensitive child. I said I was bemused by such comments. Meaning that no matter WHAT they did, Winebid was going to annoy some people and it always makes me wonder whether the reaction is born out inertia (“I know how to use the current site, I don’t like that I can’t be as efficient on the new site in 10 seconds”), missing features (Advanced Search here) or features that are implemented in a worse manner (Saved Searches).

Of course, you as usual just whine like a little girl rather than posting anything of value.

Do people really like this page: http://drop.io/86qlxw3/asset/screen-shot-2010-08-09-at-6-34-40-pm-png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

better than this one: http://drop.io/86qlxw3/asset/screen-shot-2010-08-09-at-6-34-56-pm-png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Keith_Levenberg]

@mikeycook

My pet peeve is the out-of-date tasting notes. If you’re gonna quote Parker, WS, and Tanzer, at least try to have the most recent note.

They have no obligation at all to use the most recent note (most auctions just quote whatever the best review is). If you want to use Parker, WS, or Tanzer to guide your purchases it’s your responsibility to look up what they have to say.

[Matt_Latuchie]

too many clicks necessary to get down to a specific AVA. big minus for me.

[Ed_Murray]

@Steve Saxon

@Alan Rath

Ah, OK, I see it now. Why in the world would they change it? It’s already one of the better wine sites around. If they want to implement some new features, why not just do it within the framework of the existing site? oh well, it’s their business.

OK, a little more playing, and I absolutely hate it. Hate is too weak a word. The existing site does everything I need. Handles my favorite searches easily. new one I have to keep going back to favorite searches to get to the next one. Results take up more space on the page, so now I have to scroll through possibly multiple pages to see what vintages of a particular wine are listed. Colors are crap. They actually paid someone to advise them to do this? It constantly amazes me how software people can destroy something good in the name of making it “better”.

Hey! Leave Eric alone!

In all fairness, I kinda like the new CellarTracker! but I refuse to call it Grape Stories.

[mikeycook]

In my opinion, they failed to rectify the most annoying part about WineBid, specifically showing multiple lots of the same item at the same price. I’m sure this is done to represent each individual retailer’s holdings, but it should be transparent to the consumer. I don’t care if one dealer has 3 bottles and one has 12 bottles. Just list 15 bottles and figure out some sort of allocation method that makes sense if they don’t all sell. If I didn’t want the first bottle at that price, I won’t want it a dozen more times at the same price and it just makes browsing listings cumbersome, not to mention tracking lots.

What we really want is better functionality, not a redesign… but then again no one at WineBid asked me.

[Steve_Saxon]

@Rick Gregory

@Steve Saxon

@Rick Gregory

The zoom on a bottle view is still there.

I’m somewhat bemused by comments like Saxon’s as the new site has all of the menu options of the old one as far as I can tell, and doesn’t do the silly crap of duplicating menus.

as I was posting my comments I bet myself that you would be the first one to comment that I was wrong. It must be great being you.

I didn’t say you were wrong - quit being such a sensitive child. I said I was bemused by such comments. Meaning that no matter WHAT they did, Winebid was going to annoy some people and it always makes me wonder whether the reaction is born out inertia (“I know how to use the current site, I don’t like that I can’t be as efficient on the new site in 10 seconds”), missing features (Advanced Search here) or features that are implemented in a worse manner (Saved Searches).

Of course, you as usual just whine like a little girl rather than posting anything of value.

Do people really like this page: http://drop.io/86qlxw3/asset/screen-shot-2010-08-09-at-6-34-40-pm-png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

better than this one: http://drop.io/86qlxw3/asset/screen-shot-2010-08-09-at-6-34-56-pm-png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thank you for the kind words, pm sent.

[cganzer]

@Rick Gregory

Do people really like this page: http://drop.io/86qlxw3/asset/screen-shot-2010-08-09-at-6-34-40-pm-png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

better than this one: http://drop.io/86qlxw3/asset/screen-shot-2010-08-09-at-6-34-56-pm-png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

No, but I vastly prefer the previous auction index (list of wine names, ordered by vintage) to the current one. If that remains unavailable I probably won’t spend the time looking at Winebid again.

[Alan_Rath]

@Rick Gregory

Do people really like this page: http://drop.io/86qlxw3/asset/screen-shot-2010-08-09-at-6-34-40-pm-png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

better than this one: http://drop.io/86qlxw3/asset/screen-shot-2010-08-09-at-6-34-56-pm-png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Absolutely! By a country mile. The “original” page allows me to see more listings per page. I don’t need to see a picture of the bottle, particularly when I’m just scrolling through a list of wines and vintages from a producer. I don’t need the distracting background. BTW, your first screen shot isn’t really the right comparison, it should be the equivalent list of wines, not the list of regions. But everyone has different tastes and opinions, this is just mine.
Cheers

[Rick_Gregory]

I used those two as those are what you get when you click on a country (Australia in this case), i.e. the same action results in very different pages. The old one’s always seemed odd to me. But, as you say, people are different.

To generalize my reply to Saxon above, I’m not saying ANY of you are ‘wrong’ if you dislike the new site. You can’t be wrong, it’s your reaction. It’s just that I’ve designed software for 20 years and it’s ALWAYS this way - some people will hate whatever you do, some will like it. If you’re really off, everyone will hate it. It just brings a smile to my face. Even if you have usability studies showing the new site’s way better at letting people navigate, people complete tasks faster and at a higher rate, there will STILL be people who don’t like the new version. It simply amuses me because it’s such a universal. Every single redesign I’ve seen has people who will hate it. We’re interesting, perverse creatures.