Ugly as sin, straight to the point
Like most online operations, we’re always excited to see our name in print offline. Last year, we were excited to have our site mentioned in Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, Publisher’s Weekly, and a lot of other publications I’ve actually heard of — on top of mentions in places we had no clue about.
The Georgia Straight is one of those publications I’d never heard of before, but the free Vancouver weekly just ran what may be my favorite BookFinder.com review of all time. Writes tech columnist Dave Watson:
Web sites? Ive got a few. First, unless you get a time machine and hop back to 1996, you wont be too impressed with the Web site design over at BookFinder.com (www.bookfinder.com/). Its a great place to find rare and out-of-print books and has a central search engine that boasts access to 100 million tomes listed by 100,000-plus booksellers (skewed toward the rare and out-of-print stuff), but its not very stylish. It actually cheers me up to see it, partly because it lets visitors get right down to the business of searching for a particular book and partly because I look at that page and thinkas a person who was rejected from the art world back in Grade 3 ‘Wow. Compared to that, I feel like Leonardo de Monet!’ (I was also booted out of art-history class.) BookFinder has been open since 1996; perhaps the executives decided that updating the database engine driving things behind the scenes was a bigger priority than adding spinning graphics, Javascript doohickeys, Flashy animations, or, I dont know, a sixth colour. Score one for efficiency over aesthetics.(Georgia Straight, “This year Ill definitely spend less time on-line,” Jan. 5, 2006)
What’s the opposite of a backhanded compliment? (A fronthanded insult?) Dave sums it much more colorfully than we ever could—BookFinder.com’s not pretty, but it gets the job done. We spend most of our time working to improve access to the bajillions of books findable through our system, and to bring in more of those that aren’t. Stunning web design just isn’t our forte. We’ll probably get around to making things look a bit more professional at some point in time, but it’s not at the top of our to-do lists.
Comments
The no-frills, don't waste my time interface is one big reason for Google's popularity, and it works on Bookfinder, too. I still use the Classic display, so that I can see all the variations on title/subtitle at once. (I also program in Fortran and Basic, so these may be the comments of a technical troglodyte.)
Posted by: Mark K. Digre, Twin City Antiquarian Books | January 9, 2006 9:46 AM
bookfinder remains stable, reliable, easy to use and accessible. I find it aesthetically pleasing, too, and I know Paul Klee from Mondrian, and Jackson pollack from the rest. etc. i.e., don't fix it if it's not broken. Don't break it so you have to fix it (like certain parties are known to do)
Posted by: john henderson | January 10, 2006 10:06 AM
Don't bother changing anything-and certainly not the Classic display option!
Posted by: Kevin Fraser | January 10, 2006 1:31 PM
I've always recommended bookfinder to every college professor and student peer that I bump in to. It helps that a lot of my classes are things like Chinese literature from the Yuan Dynasty or something obscure like that. So a lot of the books may be better found (and better for the pocketbook) with bookfinder.com
Bravo ... and on behalf of a student without a lot of time to search for the best deals on textbooks, thank you. I also think your site design is very old-school and to the point. If I want pretty and shinny I'll go play with Christmas decorations.
Posted by: Bunny | January 11, 2006 10:56 AM
Don't go changin', we love you just the way you are . . .
Posted by: JD Szazdi Books | January 12, 2006 3:50 PM
You don't have to change Classic display option. The most important to my mind is to satisfy users but not to jump over one's head for no reason.
Posted by: Andy, web designer | January 19, 2006 12:20 AM
I have to say that it gives me great satisfaction that Bookfinder has looked the change since I went online in the 90s. No offence to your new bosses but I still haven't forgiven Abe from changing to red from that nice yellow scheme they had some years back. Don't change the look AT ALL!
Posted by: Rob | January 22, 2006 6:35 AM
I've got to chime in with the chorus here; BookFinder.com works, and there's no place I'd rather go on-line to find books. That you've had a productive web-site going on 10 years in the internet marketplace certainly says something for your design, and it sounds like Georgia Straight applauds that virtue/reality; I know I appreciate it -- Thank you!
Posted by: Jim | February 4, 2006 4:57 AM