/goodreads-www

Static website to offer "André's Goodreads.com Toolbox" software as-a-service

Primary LanguageHTMLGNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

André's Goodreads Toolbox as a Service

Maintenance

The landing page

Screenshot (visit website)

Responsive, static, transactional landing page I can easily host on GitHub Pages for free to offer my toolbox to people who don't want to install anything on their own computers:

  • form submission is supported by external free services
  • plain HTML5 form validation
  • form contains as less elements as possible, so filling of this form seems like less work
  • color scheme and typography refer to the Goodreads.com website
  • problem statement (why) -> solution statement -> call to action
  • privacy notice and consent checkbox (GDPR)
  • left half of the page: slightly animated informative slides
  • slides
    • change when the user changes between the input controls
    • help users understand the form: where do they find the info they have to enter etc
    • add a second mouse pointer as users are used to seek and follow mouse pointers: we attract and lead their attention to specific areas; it clearly represents an user interaction, too: "sth. you have to do too"; it's the only significant animation on the page
    • aren't real screenshots: HTML easier to update, loads faster;
      screenshots need editing due to copyrighted book covers
    • it looks nice, reminds of a screen recording (or monitor recording if some perspective added)

Observations:

  • most subscribers don't use a special-purpose shelf with selected books but paste their whole "read" or "wishlist" shelves
  • some users subscribe multiple times with different shelves so that each is checked (could be achieved with a single special-purpose shelf too); one user replied 'unsubscribe' on a mail (1 mail per shelf) and only meant to unsubscribe this specific shelf, not the other ones
  • technical 'lessons learned' can be found in the comments of the source files

Older:

Screenshot

Copiers

You need to search-replace my email address datakadabra@gmail.com in all files. Maybe I will generalize this webpage to a template where form and slides are easer to customize.