In general I really like the new customer interface - I think it’s easier for them to customize things and it makes it clear that they are the ones doing the customization. The one thing I think is lacking is that there’s no longer any place to add instructions to assist the customer. You can put something in the general design description, but that doesn’t appear in the design screen so they won’t see it when they need it.
I’m not talking about labels for every field, I think that’s overkill, but having one area where we could explain anything that’s in any way complicated or not intuitive would be helpful. It would be ideal if the field was editable on the “edit details” area (so we could add/change it without needing to change the design) and it would appear somewhere in the customer interface as they are personalizing the design.
She didn’t understand that she needed to drag the heart to the correct date and somehow thought that I would be taking care of that for her before it printed. I used to provide those instructions in the field labels, but since those are gone, there’s no place to tell them what they need to do, and apparently it wasn’t obvious (to her, at least) that she could drag the heart herself.
If there is some place I’ve missed where I can add instructions, I’d be delighted if someone could enlighten me.
p.s. Didn’t there used to be a suggestions board? Did it disappear or did I just hallucinate that it ever existed?
You could create an image with instructions and add it to the media section. An annoying time consuming PITA to create and add to every product requiring instructions, but it’s one solution if all of our explanatory labels are now forever gone. Annoyed that Zazzle has nuked the label option that so many of us used and relied on to help customers.
Well that’s an idea I hadn’t considered. Not sure that people will see and/or read it, but maybe I can come up with something simple and picture focused. It still wouldn’t be visible when they’re customizing it, but it’s certainly worth a shot. Thanks for the suggestion!
Highlight “Design Instructions” at the top of the image in big letters. Put it right behind the cover image so that customers are more likely to see it. If you have no cover image, you’ll have to create one since you might not want the design instructions as a cover image, and the only way to add an additional image is if you already have a cover image.
Wow! That would certainly be thorough, seems like a lot of work to do that for each one though (I have hundreds of calendars with hearts). Maybe I could make a generic one or something. Hmmm… Where would you put the link to the video?
ETA - I guess you could make the video be one of the media items, Doh! Hmmm… I have no idea how to make a video like that, looks like you used Canva?
@Cat you would add it to the media section of the product (like you do with static promos) didn’t take long to make - screen capture (windows) then edit/add text in canva
I would bear in mind that whatever you do, Zazzle is probably going to overthrow the whole thing again any time. So it needs to be “sustainable” against those changes. I haven’t even had the courage yet to look at disasters created by Zazzle locking layers left and right … The consequences of all these changes are just not thought out well imho.
Great example of how to use Media Manager to help the customer shop easy, Sara. Also, this is a great example for when to use the locking feature. You should be locking all other elements except the heart to avoid accidental movements, especially on mobile. Again, by locking I don’t mean disable, so if the customer wanted to move other things, they still can. 😁
James, yes, it’s a use for media manager, but not a great one unless you’re just starting out at ground zero on Zazzle. If you’ve provided help instructions on thousands of products via the apparently now discontinued “product page label” it’s just another a time consuming laborious process to fix what Zazzle broke, that’s been forced on us by ill thought out changes that have made designers’ existing designs collateral damage. I made changes to a bunch of products awhile ago, but especially now when we earn so much less thanks to the massive 4/1 Zazzle marketing fees, it’s too much of a time suck to fix thousands more.
@James Could you please clarify what you mean by “locking I don’t mean disable”? If it’s locked, it can’t be customized. I also would like to know why this is a problem in the new design tool and was never a problem in the previous tool? Can this be fixed??? (and that includes bringing back the labels). I would like to provide the option for customers to change ANYTHING they want to change. That used to be Zazzle’s big selling point.
I believe they describe the reasoning in an older post when they released the new tool. When we ‘lock’ items now, it just makes it so they don’t start moving them around on accident. The customer can still unlock them in the layers. It is also to help when you have say a gradient over a photo, so the customer can easily access the photo without the gradient getting in the way (which was a problem in both tools). Zazzle is automatically locking layers like this now. I was annoyed at first, but it’s actually make things easier for the customer, so I get it now.
The ‘disable’ is now the actual ‘lock’, which does not allow customers to unlock. At least that’s my understanding.
