New Design Experience Now in A/B Testing

[Heather]

Hi Creators,

We're excited to share that we've launched an updated design experience that's currently in A/B testing! This represents a significant evolution in how design works on Zazzle, moving toward a unified tool that serves both creators and customers.

What's Live Now?: Our design tool experience is being tested, meaning users will see either the current experience or one of three new variants. This tool builds on the features you've been using including frames, grids, design elements, and our royalty-free content library, but is optimized to make design more accessible to customers who may not have your level of design expertise. Your existing post-for-sale flow remains accessible and we intend to improve those workflows as part of the next phase. 

Here's a quick demo from Sean walking through the experience:
https://youtu.be/TUMP-xSCJno

Why This Matters for You: Since this A/B test exposes templates to a new design interface, you may notice that some existing designs work differently in this customer-focused environment. 

As an example, to create a smoother customer journey, we’ve improved how “locking” works for layers. Previously , when you locked an object, customers could not unlock the object which caused usability issues when they wanted to make changes. With the new update, both you and your customers can unlock a locked layer. Note, if you originally had a a locked layer, the "disabled" setting is automatically turned on with the update. Additionally, we’re using the locking feature to automatically hide certain layers, such as large transparent overlays, shields, or borders, that might otherwise interfere with customers trying to upload photos or edit text.

After the test concludes, we'll be sharing tips and best practices to help your templates shine in this new experience to maximize customer engagement and conversion. 

Looking ahead, this optimized experience is the first step toward a cohesive design tool for everyone on Zazzle, designed to add ease for customers and positively increase conversion to benefit creators. We welcome your thoughts and feedback as you see this experience in action, as your insights help us build better tools for the entire Zazzle community. The team will be reviewing this thread so please weigh in as you’d like. 

Thanks for being part of this journey, 

The Zazzle Team

[CreativeLeahG]

Hi Heather 

re this:

"As an example, to create a smoother customer journey, we’ve improved how “locking” works for layers. Previously , when you locked an object, customers could not unlock the object which caused usability issues when they wanted to make changes. With the new update, both you and your customers can unlock a locked layer."

There's a reason many designers lock layers and that is to preserve the integrity of the design. Which when customers post reviews and photos may show a horrid distortion of what the designer created.

or

Because as single elements the design doesn't meet the graphic license guidelines which may specify that the graphics must only be used when combined with other elements. In essence the customer should not be able to remove or manipulate those elements which may include removing them!

Removing them meaning that the graphic is now isolated and being used contrary to the terms. 

I think it's fair to say designers lock layers for a reason so allowing customers to unlock them ...??? 

[jessletterman]

Exactly. I sometimes lock layers due to the licensing of certain graphics or to prevent customers from messing up more intricate designs. Zazzle is opening up designers to possible legal issues.

[DancingPelican]

I agree with Leah's comments. There are license agreements designers have on some of their purchased graphics that require we lock the graphics so they may not be directly accessed by a customer.  How will Zazzle protect any license terms we have entered into in graphics we purchased licenses to use on the Zazzle platform?
Additionally, design integrity is also an issue here. We layout our design with intention and may not want a customer to rearrange the graphics or transfer them to a product with a different aspect ratio which make the design inappropriate for that product. As a designer, I want to have some appropriate level of control in these circumstances.

[Heather]

Hi Creators -   Note, if you originally had a a locked layer, the "disabled" setting is automatically turned on with the update. I added this to the announcement. Please let us know if you find anything to the contrary as there may be edge cases / bugs and our team will look into. Thank you!

[Wollastonite]

It looks great in the video! It seems much more intuitive for the customer, and I like the way that the font options are pushed to the forefront.  Hopefully customers will have a much easier time visualizing the product and playing around with making changes, leading to more sales. I'll have to see how it works on the designer end, but it seems promising!

[Cat]

For those of us who don't have access to the new tool, it's going to be a little difficult to advise customers on how to make changes. Is it OK to share the video with customers?

And, once the change is settled, could you pretty please make a video/tutorial that's geared toward customers? It would be SUPER helpful - ideally it could be accessed from within the design tool so customers could just click on it for a quick tour rather than messaging us for help every time they get stuck.

[ThankYouAlways]

If I am correct in saying this then going forward, any new product design that is used can be unlocked by both the creator and the customer. If a creator was using purchased art then they would need to determine if it will affect their Art License End User Agreement.

[Heather]

@ThankYouAlways - we’ve added a new toggle called “Disable All Object Interaction” which is located in the “More options” section in the right-hand panel. When enabled, it prevents users from interacting with the layer, and they cannot change this setting. When creating new products, turn this on if you have licensing restrictions. 

[ashleetownsend]

I also agree with everyone the we lock layers for a reason! There is a purpose and a reason as to why we do it, and whatever that may be, it should be honored by Zazzle. We don’t want the customer having free reign over every part of the design. 

I also, personally, think the new design tool will not be easier for customers to use. I think it will overwhelm a lot of customers to be thrown into a “design tool” when they hit personalize, instead of just being able to quickly and clearly replace the template items. 

Is there a way to opt out of the “elements/clip art” portion of this? I draw and paint all of my illustrations myself. I painstakingly create all of my own patterns. I certainly don’t want a random piece of clip art from the elements panel added to a design I spent hours creating.

[Fiorenzo]

Designers with a tad more sophisticated design templates will love the new minimalist look their customers will get. And the loss of sales this will cause. Good luck, especially on cards and products that may come with blank placeholders, multiple-choice text fields, and fields that rely on dedicated information to be filled correctly. Customers without a magic sphere will love it, too.

Don't get me wrong, the interface looks fresh and appealing, but you are basically forcing customers to work blindly on a ton of more complex templates, and the new designer layout is a complete waste of space on any device that is not a mobile phone, with all tools and stuff now unnecessarily hidden who-knows-where instead of being in plain sight in dedicated tool bars like in the actual designer (that looks great and works perfectly, btw) and any regular non-mobile application. And for many designers (and probably not just little fish like me), these changes will turn into a nightmare, both financially (loss of sales) and technically (have fun redesigning hundreds or thousands of templates).

The issues could easily be addressed technically, by using a real responsive design approach on tablets and desktops (add the tool bars again), and by adding info-icons next to each field that open a pop-up window containing the field label information text provided by the designer.

This is meant to be a placeholder for an optional logo at the bottom of the card, which is explained in my template label: 

The actual designer is a great tool, and the personalization form could have been integrated into the new layout perfectly, with all labels provided. Just saying. Sorry for the rant, but I'm completely shocked here. And I'm not a designer with thousands of products to redesign. How will this be handled, btw? 

Edit: I forgot to note that you even have to open the layers pop-up to see all available fields and imagery. The positive aspect is that you can now add multiple images, which customers can then easily hide and unhide at their own discretion. This is great, e.g. for handling monogram or zodiac signs images. Assuming the customers know this little trick.