New Slickdeals Feature: User Preferences and Personalization for the Frontpage

It’s hard to predict what’s going to be on the Slickdeals front page on any given day. From a Crucial solid state drive this time last month to women’s socks and magazine subscriptions six months ago, Slickdeals might as well be the Magic 8 ball of websites. While we do celebrate the diversity of our community, we also recognize that we can’t ignore your individual Slickdeals needs. This is why we’re introducing the Preferences tab.

If you’ve been with us from the good ol’ 20th Century or even the early 21st, then you’ll know that our community has changed a lot in the past couple of years. Our Front Page is no longer dominated by hardcore tech products because our techies of a decade ago are now spouses, parents, hot shot executives, etc. Your needs change and we want to make sure that Slickdeals matures with you without alienating our newest members.

The “Preferences” tab next to the viewing options now allows you to tailor your Front Page deals by simply liking, disliking or remaining neutral on 20+ major categories such as Apparel, Electronics, Pets and more. If you’d like to be more specific, you can even expand on the categories and tell us how you feel about Optical Drives or Messenger Bags. After selecting your preferences, just hit save and close the tab by clicking on it again. The tab will remain on that permanent spot so that you can update your choices at any time. In addition to the categories we provided, you can also enter particular stores that you like or dislike.

We are also glad to know that you’ve discovered the News & Articles area which features four different sections. This week’s News & Articles features this Personalization Site Update, The Best Credit Card Rewards Programs, Top 5 Mostly-False Slickdeals Myths, and a Giveaway Winners Infographic. In the future, we’d love to have community members write for us so please let us know if you have any suggestions.

Thank you for your continued support of Slickdeals! We’re glad that you’re part of our community and we will continue to improve our website to cater to your needs!

Check out http://beta.slickdeals.net for all the new features. We will roll it out as soon as all bugs are squashed.

Once you're at beta.slickdeals.net, click on the Help button on the left side of the page and go through the "User Preferences" tutorial to get a guided view of whats new.

Please provide your feedback for our new personalization and preferences tools on the frontpage here in this thread.

If you've found a bug or are experiencing issues, please be sure to include your

Operating System and Operating System Version,
Browser and Browser Version,
General Computer Specs (Processor, Ram),
A description of the bug or issue
Steps to produce the issue

138

Deftonian ( 248

) Mar. 17, 2012 at 11:37am

In addition to my suggestion above; I keep getting stuck at the "quickview" tutorial. It wont let me get past the instruction on how to hover over quickview.

139

TidalWaveOne ( 906

) Mar. 17, 2012 at 12:22pm

Quote from Maleficent

Did you try just "Amazon?"

Doesn't work either... plus it lists "Amazon.com" as an example.

140

Maleficent ( 7,707

) Mar. 17, 2012 at 12:29pm

Quote from TidalWaveOne

Ah, I see what you mean. laugh out loud

141

SP33DFR34K ( 17,716

) Mar. 17, 2012 at 1:04pm

Quote from nullstring

It;s interesting, but I don't like how it's mixing the popular deals with the front page deals.

It would be nice if it would still use the same algorithm, but show the front page deals first, then the popular deals.
Also: while I am here, I would like it if expired deals weren't listed at the bottom. There should be an option to keep those in place with the other deals.

Intergrating is the most logical and simplest way and we can take advantage of new since your last visit indication. If we didn't you would have to scroll up and down to see what's new and what isn't.

The expiration thing was changed a while back and from the feedback we got when we changed it, it's staying.

142

) Mar. 17, 2012 at 1:09pm

Quote from Deftonian

I have a suggestion:

I like the old way of having Frontpage Slickdeals only have the best of the best, no matter what category. Maybe instead of integrating the preferences into the Frontpage Slickdeals, you can add a banner next to it that states, "My Front Page Deals" or simply "My Slickdeals" to where you click on it and it shows you your preferences with all the hot deals. Keep them separate so the real slick FP worthy deals don't get diluted with other things. Just my opinion. Here's a pic of what I'm talking about. This way, all your preferences will have it’s own place. It will make it more of a personal feeling when you visit the site.... and may encourage others to register so they can create their own "My Slickdeals" preferences Smilie

People want to see the deals they want in one place, not having to click into another area otherwise it's like going to popular deals and the hot deals section.

You have more control of the frontage now. If you don't like seeing popular deals you don't have to. If you want to see more TV deals you can.

When I type "Amazon.com" into the "Add a Store" box and press Enter, it says invalid store name.

You have to make sure you select it from the drop down list

143

) Mar. 17, 2012 at 1:12pm

What I'd love to be able to do is specific "negative keywords/phrases" so that if that keyword shows up in the title, then I don't see the deal or it is hidden unless I specifically ask for it (like the expired deals where you click to expand)... this would let me exclude a lot of stuff I am not interested in. I would find it much more useful that category preferences.

I'm curious as to some of the keywords you want to use

144

) Mar. 17, 2012 at 1:57pm

Quote from SP33DFR34K

Yes, but that doesn't make any sense... if you type in "Amazon.com" and hit enter and it tells you it's invalid, but selecting the same from a drop down works, then that's some bad engineering. Smilie

145

) Mar. 17, 2012 at 2:04pm

Let's see...

Some negative keywords/phrases for stuff I'm not interested in:

"garden hose" - seen this several times... don't need any hoses
"guitar" - not interested in anything guitar related
"battlefield" - not interested in this game
"lodge logic" - not interested
"flash drive" - got plenty
"headset"
"blackberry"
"jamba juice"

I could go on... but this would be much more useful to me that categories.

146

Quik3115 ( 28

) Mar. 17, 2012 at 6:29pm

New layout looks pretty nice!

147

) Mar. 17, 2012 at 9:26pm

Maybe I misunderstood what the Front Page was about then. I thought it was a place where only best of the best deals were provided, not just deals someone wanted to see. On that note, the second tab would be the place where they can see all of their preference deals in one place. If you use the notion that it's like going to popular deals and then hot deals section then you've missed the point yourself because you can't currently put your preference there so that filter is just like front page. The idea behind a "my slickdeals" tab would be to put all deals related to your specific preferences in one place, seperate from front page which pertains to the original idea of serving everyone with the best of the best. I guess you're right though, it's a feature I just wont use. Thanks for at least listening to my thoughts and opinions.

148

) Mar. 17, 2012 at 9:33pm

What I'm saying is that no matter what it gets hung at the quickview help tab. Once it's there, either by clicking next through the tutorial or selecting it directly by dropdown list, it gets hung and I can't select another tutorial on the dropdown, next doesn't work, previous doesn't work, and if I click any other deal on the front page, the tutorial box explaining the quickview stays there, no way to close it unless I switch to another page.

149