New Feature in Beta Testing - Deal Display

Not a fan of the "Community Deal Details","Wiki", Helpful Posts section. Whatever you call that black chunk. It just a big wall of text to me that my eyes glaze over at. I think its because it reminds me of an Ad and most people have trained their brains to ignore them or assume they arent "real" information.

I do like the "cleaner" layout other than that in regards to the voting, attached images, etc. I like the "Like" button and the signature moved to the bottom.

I agree with everyone who thinks the OP info should stay at the top. It helps make an initial assessment of a deal, e.g., I'd be more likely to keep reading (and keep up with) an extreme YMMV deal posted by a veteran vs a noob. As far as people's points about seeing the OP in the thread listing, you don't get to see this when you click on a deal from an email alert.

I like the helpful posts idea. Having helpful posts moved below the wiki is not only useful, but helps give credit where due. Voting on posts was something I also suggested at one point, but one comment that was made that was also repeated here is that a system like this might be prone to abuse. I would suggest maybe creating a post sticky feature similar to thread stickies in addition to, or instead of, the helpful post feature. I don't even know if this is possible, but this way everyone can customize their own threads. Just a thought...

As far as related deals and the community details, I don't like it and I agree with the expand/collapse button idea. If it's going to stay, then at least put some visual separation from the wiki.

I do like that the wiki is moved above the mod's post for FP deals, just because the mod post usually doesn't get updated as a deal evolves, or without as much detail as you'll find in the wiki.

ETA: what happened to the "voting feedback" link? Sometimes I like to see how people voted. It looks like the little bar graph in the voting section is clickable, but doesn't do anything when you click it.

Quote from bryantq : You should ask your fellow shoppers why lol, right now it's 100% based on what other people are viewing. This beta test will give us a chance to adjust it to make it more relevant. Thanks for participating!

I have a feeling you will not get the welcomed responses you hoped to expect. I, for one, think the new layout is fantastic. It seems like you guys are doing your research and changing things for the better. Just like when facebook redesigned their site, people were non stop crying. But in the end, it works out for the better. Steve jobs said, " A lot of times, people don't know what they want..." You need to tell us what we want.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TtGQnyPZ6g

Quote from bryantq : You should ask your fellow shoppers why lol, right now it's 100% based on what other people are viewing. This beta test will give us a chance to adjust it to make it more relevant. Thanks for participating!

Generally speaking it just doesn't make sense to put it where it is. Why would anyone want to have more clutter, frankly unrelated to the deal at hand, between the OP and the meat of the deal (thread/conversation). They already clicked the forum to read more about the specific topic/product at hand...yet there's just more clutter in the way. It should be at the bottom if anything.

Based on my observing, and posting for the past year or so, I've noted that the best SD's are extremely limited (usually due to a rare deep discount, price mistake, or rapid fire sale) and come and go quickly before there are any worthy "related" deals.

If you're talking about everyday TV deals, or the non-stop computer hardware related deals it might make sense to include some as "related deals" cause these 2 categories seem to spam SDs threads and there are plenty of "deals" to go around.

In terms of the real 'diamond in the dirt' deals that can apply to everyone on any given day, regardless of need or not, there are really no related deals as far as I'm concerned, and I'm sure many would agree.

Quote from chanmanx2k : I have a feeling you will not get the welcomed responses you hoped to expect. I, for one, think the new layout is fantastic. It seems like you guys are doing your research and changing things for the better. Just like when facebook redesigned their site, people were non stop crying. But in the end, it works out for the better. Steve jobs said, " A lot of times, people don't know what they want..." You need to tell us what we want.

And then proceeded to lose half its stock value post-IPO

I mentioned how we shouldn't copy the "LIKE" feature of Facebook and you can clearly see how many people are against that idea. I think BryantQ sees why we feel that way though as the "Thumbs Up/Down" is a real part of SD. If I saw a yellow thumbs up or down on a shirt, the first thing I'd think of is SlickDeals!

The Helpful Post voting is based off of Amazon and TripAdvisor as I also mentioned earlier. These are not innovations, but how we implement them certainly can be different - and I really like the idea that BryantQ came up with regarding repping the poster and highlighting those posts.

That being said, plenty of people I know are only part of Facebook, because there is no better alternative, they made changes and people were pissed but didn't know where else to go. SlickDeals obvoiusly has some legitimate competition, so it naturally has to be more cautious with changes and proceed accordingly, and I think they will cause they seem to be more receptive to feedback as a whole.

How can I disable related deals?

I had a bunch of thoughts, but I first want to confirm that this is only supposed to apply to deals in the Hot Deals section? The beta site shows it changing for front page deals too. But that's probably just me exploring what I'm not supposed to yet.

Thread Author: I will somewhat diverge from a consensus here, initially I really liked it at the bottom. I generally go to see deals, and do not care about post authors, but that is the way "I" use this site. I wouldn't consider myself a very strong member of the community here, and I think what you have built works. I can see that if you change it, it will de-emphasize the community of people, de-emphasize reputation (except that making +1 and I bought this automatically give people rep is a plus).

Like the icons, do not like how Give Rep and Follow go all the way to the right, not good for widescreen setups.

Related Deals: I don't want to see related deals here. You're taking attention away from the current deal, before bringing the attention right back. If you must put in related deals, I agree with the previous poster who wanted it at the end, near similar threads. Or, have you considered making a right-side banner like original post has in this beta?

Picture Location: With a widescreen setup and no fixed width site layout, it's not that helpful to have the images and extras WAY over to the right. I always like the pictures. I'd probably prefer it if that whole bar were on the left side of the screen. I DO like it out of the way of the main post. So I actually prefer it on the right rather than in the post, but think the left would be better.

Community Deal Details: Don't like the color. It's way to jarring a change from this very light beige white to a dark grey on black setup.

I like the Deal Details specifically, ties in the front page design well with the different tags of different colors. Don't care too much about what categories the deals are in right there. Some other info is good.

I LOVE helpful posts. I have way too many times tried to go through a thread that had an original post and a wiki, and didn't know where to find people who posted good information that didn't make it into the wiki.

Bought/ Expired Buttons: These are cool, though I feel the check boxes should be on the right side, or not there at all. Have it retain a light hue, how about, if they clicked it. Is the idea with the checkbox that they can uncheck it if it was on accident? I couldn't with this test post. And many are commenting that the two should be separated, why not move "Report Expired" to just below the pictures?

I'm really not liking the related deals "bar" I think it takes away from the "clean design" you are going for, it's adding clutter to the page. I do like the other new feature and find them useful. So I agree with others if the related deals garbage is here to stay, atleast add a collapse button or a way to disable it. I honestly look at it as advertising and scroll right past it. It really it just in the way IMHO.

Agreed, related deals is adding clutter. Please add an option in settings to disable it!

Quote from rubadub : ETA: what happened to the "voting feedback" link? Sometimes I like to see how people voted. It looks like the little bar graph in the voting section is clickable, but doesn't do anything when you click it.

Agree with this.
Knowing why people thumb down a deal is helpful: Is it a bad product, bad info, bad price, bad merchant, or is this guy just spamming?
Appears you can't provide why you vote things down anymore.

I also don't like that you can't be neutral. Sometimes I vote something up/down by accident, or decide it's not worth a thumb up or down anymore.

Quote from bryantq : You should ask your fellow shoppers why lol, right now it's 100% based on what other people are viewing. This beta test will give us a chance to adjust it to make it more relevant. Thanks for participating!

It depends on what the data indicates. It might be that most people are deal hunters and will view anything that is almost close to something that might be remotely worth buying at the right price.

I imagine that the "I bought this" data would be a much better metric to recommend deals on, although, still not quite great.

Quote from bryantq : Its funny that you don't like the background color in the OP since its pretty much the same as the background color in all the other replies? We believe pictures on the side make more sense, especially when people attach lots of images which clutters up the page significantly. The community deal details are important because if the community helps categorize things properly, it will improve search results, and if people use it correctly, will eventually allow us to include more specific searches, such as filtering or sorting by price, store, brand, etc. What do you "really hate" about the related deals?

Just out of curiosity, why are you asking what people like/don't like if all you are going to do is tell them they are wrong?

hate this related deals window. it makes me feel like i'm on a shopping site, not a deals site. it feels very "ad-like" and adds no value for me. it should be at the bottom of the page

i dont need to load a bunch of images unecessarily