topic Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts, in General Zazzle Discussion

New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts, suggestions

Fiorenzo — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 18:36:41 GMT

On MS Edge, I came across the new "test-phase" personalization form on customizable pillows of mine. While I like the new approach and look, there are several issues with it in its current state, and some design (and product) realities may not have been taken into consideration. I've only checked it on a desktop so far, and haven't seen it on other products but pillows yet. Please note that these issues are already affecting regular products in the marketplace and may lead to missed sales.

MAIN ISSUES

The template text fields miss all their labels, and the customer is editing blindly. This may not be an issue on simple designs, but as soon as you have several options, you're lost. Plus, you make all the designers' efforts to provide informative labels obsolete.
Template images can only be chosen by clicking on them in the preview. There is no separate choice in the editing/personalization section showing all available image templates, nor are their labels shown, with potential information for the customers (e.g. suggested image size or type etc) provided by the designer. This makes transparent placeholder images impossible to spot and choose, and on complex designs with small, overlapping, and/or clustered imagery, the only-by-clicking/tipping choice will become a gambling game.

Screeenshots actual/regular vs new personalization form (on 1920 ws & desktop). The green rectangle on the actual form shows the field labeling, the red marking on the new ones shows the blind walkthrough without.

OTHER THOUGHTS and potential Issues in need for dedicated approach/solving

A template field or image can be used multiple times, in multiple/different places (e.g. front + back or on all calendar pages), and in different ways (e.g. flipped or diff. font). This has to be taken into consideration and addressed when setting up the form. As a side note and FYI, this already doesn't work properly in the new image adjustment tool.
Design and template elements can be placed on so-called background areas wrapping around the whole product as well as separately on the different faces (e.g. envelopes, gift bags, etc).
Suggestion: To keep the field list neat, you can put labels in dropdown areas or small popups showing at hovering/clicking on an icon.
Suggestion: Show image template previews (with labels) also on the left side to make them easier to handle, and to make available also invisible or small assets.
Nice to have: Give us a dedicated Get Started / Information tool where we can put our dedicated design infos (remarks, tips, etc) and that is shown at the beginning of the form hidden in a collapsing segment or a popup.
Note: Some template borders don't show up well on shaped previews.
Important: Image adjustments must either be applied on all copies of that template placed on the product, or made to be applied on any duplicate separately. NOTE: This does NOT work correctly on the already existing adjustment tool, in other words, only one element is changed while duplicates aren't.

Please solve the labeling issue or designers (and you) may lose sales. Thanks!

P.S. If you want more info on the adjustment issues, glad to explain it further, if you plan to address the problem.

Edit: another old/new screenshot:

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

Cat — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 20:12:06 GMT

My designs are nowhere near as complicated as yours, but I do worry about people being able to figure out my wedding save the date calendars without any instructions. The design requires that they enter the design tool to move the heart over the correct date on the calendar, and without the labels, there's no way to instruct them to do so.

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

jophb — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 20:40:02 GMT

I agree, I also think the template labels are a MUST to have included with the new tool. I'm sure there are thousands of products on here that would have an issue without those. Sometimes 'simplifying' things can go too far. There is a reason there are instructions and warnings on things like shampoo bottles haha.... people need instructions 😂

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

Windy — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 21:21:46 GMT

Good suggestions for changes!

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

Cat — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 21:21:52 GMT

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about it because instructions can backfire, especially in the TLDR world that we live it. But maybe they could come up with some sort of optional design-wide instructions field that the designer could fill in, and people could click on it for instructions if they wanted them. I don't mean like the labels on every field, I mean one general instructions or notes section that would apply to the whole product. Ideally, it would be something that we could edit without editing the design - like in the "edit details" section so we could easily change it if/when the interface changed - similar to the product description, only designed for instructions and easily available as a popup from the new design form.

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

VivianD117 — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 22:49:08 GMT

but sometimes it is as simple as -- something needs to be All UPPER CASE to work correctly in a space -- and I always specify when that is required (otherwise there may not be enough room underneath for fancy lower case "dangling" letters). Or instructions for replacing photos -- much easier if they are designated: Upper Right / Lower left . . ..

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

Fiorenzo — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 23:35:59 GMT

I like your suggestion of an optional design-wide instruction field that can be updated externally, like tags, descriptions, and the like, and that can be shown in the form on the customer's request via a popup or dropdown. I use a regular (hidden) text template field for that matter - see my GETTING STARTED part in the "old version" heart template shot.

Labels are still helpful, though. There may always be field-specific important info you want to tell your users to grant the best possible outcome. And you may have optional fields in your template. Imagine a request form with a number of fields and no one tells you what they are for and what info you are supposed to submit.

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

Fiorenzo — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 17:37:21 GMT

A good example of why proper template fields & imagery handling and labeling matter.
This product could never be properly personalized through the new form.

Important sidenote: The image adjustment tool is buggy, as already mentioned: when you use the same photo on both earrings and you manually adjust the uploaded image via the resp. tool, the duplicate on the second earring won't be affected. This is a technical problem that needs to be addressed.

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

ColsCreations — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 19:21:02 GMT

I tried viewing a product in all of my browsers - signed-in to Z in Firefox, anon in Opera, Edge, Chrome, Brave and Vivaldi. Got the same same 'ol personalization panel as always. Really hoping the lack of labels you saw was a glitch as that would be disaterous. Even ignoring the instructions aspect to them, just simple labels like "Front - Bottom", or "Your Name Here" etc are essential.

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

Fiorenzo — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 23:43:31 GMT

I saw it the first time on someone else's product, can't remember where and who. Then I tried on my own store, and so far, I can see it only on Edge, logged out, and on my pillows. I've seen it quite a while ago and wasn't happy, because I doubt anyone getting this screen will personalize my pillows blindly, but I wasn't in the mood to take the time and effort to bring this issue up here with minimal chances of getting heard. So no, it's not a temporary glitch. Yesterday I took the time to analyze it in detail, and here we are. Let's see now, if this post helps. If not, it will be a disaster, and not only for me. There is another pretty serious problem with the new image adjustment tool, too, which I've mentioned. I already have all screenshots ready but again, not in the mood to waste my time.

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

ColsCreations — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 01:29:29 GMT

So no, it's not a temporary glitch.

😲😥☹️😭

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

Fiorenzo — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 07:49:37 GMT

Nope. More the typical developer approach without the consultation of a software/frontend designer knowing both sides, or, better, three sides in your case (developer, designer,, customer). Nothing new and know the story myself from my old software development times. I may work on an idea myself, when I'm bored.

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

ColsCreations — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 16:53:46 GMT

I'm seeing the new Personalize layout today on some products types, nothing of my own yet though.

While I do like the large, clean view much better than the narrow panel that was confusing to scroll if there are a lot of template fields, the lack of labels will as already discussed be disastrous for certain products. Here's two more examples of such for the Zazzle team.

This is an address label.

With no labels, the customer will just see a blank field with no idea what it's for.

With this design, I didn't want to ruin it with distracting template text but I still wanted to make it easy for customers to add text or monogram if desired so included blank template fields.

Again, with no labels the customer would just see two blank fields with no idea why / what they're for.

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

Fiorenzo — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 16:46:03 GMT

Absolutely. The new layout is a big plus, but the fields and image implementation are terrible. The customers are completely lost the moment they have to work on a template that goes over one image and text. If you look at the earrings example I posted separately, there is no way the customer will know how to personalize it correctly without labeling and my info.

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

Zorinda — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 06:04:31 GMT

Just saw the new personalization form in the wild for the first time. That Zazzle removed the text descriptions is absolutely insane. Why does it always seem that Zazzle makes these changes with absolutely no regard for the designers or the customer? This is a huge step backward imo. SMH

Zazzle, please bring our descriptions back.

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

SocolikCardShop — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 05:40:07 GMT

imho, from the customer perspective, labels are imperative. otherwise customer has no idea what to do or where to start to personalize a product. once they click on "personalize this template" the next steps should be intuitive, not require a user manual.

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

Barbara — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 10:55:28 GMT

I've looked through a variety of my products and have seen nothing like what's being described here. I don't do any kind of formal invitations, but a few of my recipe products where the customer replaces multiple lines and also business cards with multiple, replaceable lines are fine. Is it still a problem, and if so, is it only on Edge? (I use Firefox exclusively.)

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Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

jophb — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 15:22:00 GMT

@Barbara You can't see it on your own products unless you are looking on another browser that isn't logged in. Or you can see it on other people's products while logged in. It's now showing for me on Chrome and Safari too.

Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

Barbara — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 22:31:02 GMT

I checked in a private browser, and yes, now I see it. And yes, any instructions I might have given for specific templates are totally missing. Other than that, and with the products I looked at anyway, the new setup doesn't seem all that bad. If our specific titles (or whatever they're called) were included, I'd be quite happy with it.

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Re: New "test-phase" personalization form: Issues (affecting existing products), thoughts,

ColsCreations — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 04:23:05 GMT

I agree. I do like the new layout better than the scrolling panel that is a real pain when there are a lot of template fields, but removing the labels in what I assume was an attempt to make it as clean & simple as possible for shoppers was a mistake. I sincerely hope the Zazzle team reconsiders this choice after reviewing all the ways Creators rely on the label to inform customers.

Here's another example for the Team:

Not only are the labels gone, the fields are not in the designated order. It should be
Front Upper Left - Good Luck (text2)
Front, Bottom Right - You've Got This (text3)
Note from the Designer - (text4)

This is just a basic example but for more complicated designs with lots of templates, Creators often put much time & effort into making sure the text template fields appear in a logical, intentional order by purposely structuring the URL parameter fields. Mixing them up in addition to taking away the labels is not just infuriating for the Creator, it's making it less user-friendly for the shopper.