We’ve gone live with a number of aesthetic and functional changes to members’ catalog pages.

Some examples, or see my catalog.

Together the changes aim to:

• Look better. Those big clunky icons have been with us since the beginning—August 2005. The original files are on an old OS9 iMac. I’m sad to see them go, but man, they were clunky. LibraryThing is something of a “ransom note,” but we’re moving toward uniformity and beauty. You’ll see the little icons popping up elsewhere.
• Prepare the way for collections. Collections was too deeply integrated into the “new” catalog to bring it live separately. Doing both at the same time would have been a lot of work too. We’re getting closer*.
• Address some usability issues, particularly confusion over how to sort and “what the little numbers mean.”
• Speed up the page. The new page uses CSS sprites, moving from dozens of images to one.**
• Fix some bugs.

Some things are missing, including:

• New Catalog #1: Larger issues. Larger reflections on what we did. For the sake of argument, assume that it’s “working” for you, and concentrate on whether you like how it works.
• New Catalog #2: Bugs and small issues. Small issues, particularly ones we can just fix. I want these sequestered, so we aren’t stuck with messages 2-20 in the main thread being about some trivial bug that got fixed.

Labels: design, new features