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. 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 customers cannot change this setting.  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

[Fiorenzo]

Technical issue: If you edit a field and delete the content/keep it blank, the field is deleted after you submit the change.

[plumb4me]

Here is another version I see, not sure what's going on with the black outlined boxes. It's probably a bug, hope it's fixed soon.

[Connie]

At least this version is better because the customer can still go into the old design tool to make changes by clicking on Customize with Design Editor. This version is simple enough for customers to quickly change important images and text, without having to fiddle with anything. It is very similar to Minted's editor. Really, the only thing wrong with this version was that they left off the text template instructions. 

[jparrottmerrell]

So far, i like what i saw in the video. It's clean, simple, very intuitive and seems to offer quite a bit. I think it'll do a lot to help customers feel empowered. 👍 

[Connie]

I don't know what video you were watching, but for any designs that are more complicated than a simple image layer, or a few bits of clipart, it is anything BUT intuitive! Customers have to do several clicks to make any changes, and most features that we relied on for complex designs are either hidden or removed. 

[Anne]

I don't see this yet, but I have a big problem with this being thrown on us on a Friday right before the Holiday season and not being announced by email, but accidentally having to come across it in the forum. And clearly this should be pinned on top. It also fits nicely in the annual Zazzle tradition to do everything they possibly can to destroy the Holiday season. Please stop "fixing" things that aren't broken and address the LONG list of problems. Thank you.

[Barbara]

I've tried the new design tool on a number of other people's products (I don't have it), and find it's not in the least intuitive. In the effort to simplify as much as possible, it's gone to the complete opposite in which too much has been hidden from view. Every time I open it up, my first thought is, "Where did everything go?!" As a designer, I know what I'm looking for, but how about the customer? The outcome will either be that customers leave or, instead, contact the designer because they know what they want and are hoping the designer will do it for them. Not a good outcome either way.

Colorwash's Home    Colorwash on Benable   Benable invite link

[SheaPrints]

I've used the new text 'outline' feature quite a lot since it was launched, but I'm not sure it will be noticed when customers change the text color - especially where it's used to make small text bolder on dark backgrounds. I think the 'text color' and 'Text Effects' should be in the same place, especially 'Shadow' and 'Stroke' that involve color.

[Anne]

I wish Zazzle would think in terms of functionality instead of just randomly moving things from left to right (like the front/back views) and vice versa. The main problem with the "old"/current design tool as I see it, is that adding the template option is not thought through well enough. If you need to add a lot of templates, it means constantly moving your vision from left to right and back, like watching a tennis game.
And why on earth, after ALL the feedback from designers about the font tool, is that also in the new tool?
Clearly Zazzle does not give a s*** about the opinion of designers. (they don't like it, but here it is)