New Design Experience Now in A/B Testing

Heather
Community Manager
Community Manager

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:

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

202 REPLIES 202

Bepina
New Contributor III

I clicked randomly on a few products to personalize/edit them and was left staring at the screen not knowing what to do. I clicked on the text, nothing happened, then I clicked a few more times and finally I was able to edit them. It' super confusing, I don't think regular people will be able to make edits easily and would probably just give up. My first impulse after nothing was happening when I was clicking was to just close the window. The old way when you instantly have clear input fields where you can enter your text is 100x more intuitive and easier. This should be an advance edit option, not default state for personalization.

THIS is a really good suggestion!


@Bepina wrote:

This should be an advance edit option, not default state for personalization.


If Zazzle could make it optional during the test period they could actually see if any customer would prefer it to the old one or not.

ColsCreations
Honored Contributor III

But this is what we had before. Clicking to Personalize opened the template panel directly on the product page to edit just the basics the designer set as template fields. From there the customer could choose to use the advanced editor (entering the Design Tool). From what I've seen of the new models being tested they are trying to combine both into one single interface with disastrous results. I don't think it's wise or possible to combine the advanced needs of designers with the simplified no-knowledge-required needs of the general shopping public into one one-size-fits-all interface. And then in the same interface they are also trying to accommodate the Canva-type users who are willing to piece together their own design from provided elements. And it's not working. Reminds me of the Aesop's fable about the man the boy and the donkey - If you seek to please all, then you will please none.

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