The design could use quite a bit of help, but otherwise this could be something I could use.
How are the recommendations generated?
The Hawaii Project is constantly scanning what the blogosphere is writing about in terms of books, and then matching that to your tastes and interests (topics, authors, website sources), so the recommendations always stay fresh and timely - vs Goodreads, which tends to be pretty static (if you like X you'll like Y). I may not care about all the books that say, the New York Times Book Review writes about, but if I'm into historical fiction and they review a book of that sort, I'll get a recommendation for it.
THP also has an index of articles from the web about particular books, and the ability to quickly browse what sites are writing about - kind of like a books-oriented news reader
It also generates a weekly mail with books that match your interests and authors that are being written about, so you don't have to go looking for them or miss a book from your favorite author.
And yes, my design skills need help :)
I'm also always interested in hearing about books that authors I like are reading or maybe books that they've been influenced by.
Regarding the design, there is definitely a lot of gradients and drop shadows happening which makes the page feel "heavy" and not relaxing like I think Hawaii brings to mind. I'm not sure if it's that but something is making the large grid layouts to load slowly on both my desktop and laptop.
1. This is a great idea. I'm /always/ looking for book recommendations and I find that Goodreads doesn't do the job for me.
2. Thank you for giving me a 'Not yet, I just want to look around' button. This turned a potentially irritating moment to a moment of 'Huh... that's a nice touch'.
3. I'm afraid I say that I think the design is horrible. Not necessarily layout, but more the CSS, e.g. the background colour, the style of the buttons, etc.
4. I think there's too much stuff in the navbar at the top. This includes a few things that I don't really know what to do with. It's all a bit cluttered, and that makes me a bit anxious. Couldn't this be stripped down a bit?
5. The menu is absolutely full of options, some of which seem a bit repetitive. I've got 'Edit my authors', 'Edit my channels', 'Personalise', etc. Isn't there a way all this kind of stuff can be put in one place?
6. When I click 'Edit authors', I'm not really sure why I have to do this on a separate page (or indeed why I'm telling you about /authors/ I like). Can't I just tell you which books I like?
7. I don't really know what 'My Articles' is. I wouldn't mind something that /only/ dealt with books.
8. Loading times are a /bit/ on the slow side, especially on the 'Recommendations' page.
Conclusion: Interesting idea, so I've signed up. For me, the biggest thing that needs to improve is the general look of the site (not necessarily layout, but the CSS), followed by the fact that everything feels a bit cluttered.
This is all just my opinion, though...!
I'm a recovering executive remembering how to code, and my design skills are awful. I have a designer friend giving me styling advice. It is too heavy. I was going for that hawaii feel but I think it's too much :)
My articles is getting a revamp shortly - the gist is, just as you can get book recommendations, you can get article recommendations about books - kind of a Flipboard for Books or StumbleUpon for Books. But that feature is still formative....i.e. not really ready for primetime.
Thanks for this. Keep it coming. You can find my email address on the About Us page if you want to send more.
I only did a few searches and sadly only found one of the books I recently read/started (and the only "well-known" one) - the one I didn't like that much.
I'm not using an ad blocker or anything, just have "Block sites from setting any data" checked in Settings > Show Advanced Settings > Privacy > Content Settings > Cookies.
Thanks.
