How Would You Improve The Overdrive Interface?
July 11th, 2012Over the weekend, Stephanie tweeted:
I thought she was right on (sadly), so I retweeted it. The next day, @OverDriveLibs replied:
Good on them for paying attention and being open to ideas. Since they're listening, I put together the following list that I think would improve the Overdrive experience.
Granted, I know their web interface is somewhat customizable, so different libraries have different looks and slightly different experiences. And, I know they have a mobile interface, which I'm going to ignore for now. I also won't even talk about Overdrive Advantage, because I don't know how much just seems overly complicated to me due to my library being part of a consortium.
- Remove the bookbag entirely.
It doesn't seem like a whole lot of people shop for and then check out a bunch of books at once. In my experience, most people look for one book at a time, and then download it. This process becomes overly complicated by having to add that one book to the bookbag, review the bookbag, then proceed to checkout to download it. I think Overdrive would be so, so much easier to use if, instead of the "add to bookbag" link, people clicked a link that would take them right to the download process.If you make downloading a book easy enough, and then return people back to where they were after downloading is complete, you don't need a bookbag anyway.
- Combine the loan-period selection screen with the download button screen.
Once someone chooses a book they want to check out, they should be taken to a single screen that lets them choose the loan period AND click a button to download right from that page. Combining these eliminates a step, which would go a long way to making Overdrive easier to use. The whole experience should be:- search for book, then click the link to get the book
- choose loan period, click "Download" or "Get for Kindle" button
- struggle with DRM software*
- enjoy book
I see no reason why the process couldn't be this streamlined.
- Change "add to bookbag" link text.
With the bookbag gone, the "add to bookbag" link needs to be changed. One problem I've seen patrons have is making sure they choose the right format - because format is specified on the left of the screen, but the link they need to click is on the right.It seems difficult to make a mistake, but I have watched more than one person do it - especially in this scenario: Someone has a Kindle, and they limit to show only available items. The Kindle item is checked out, but the EPUB line says "add to bookbag" - the person is thinking Kindle, and sees the "add to bookbag" link, so they click it. Likewise, I've also seen people download an ebook thinking they were getting an audiobook.
My suggestions for better link text is:
Instead of Replace with add to bookbag Download Kindle Ebook
Download EPUB Ebook
Download WMA Audiobook
Download MP3 Audiobookplace a hold Request Kindle Ebook
Request EPUB Ebook
Request WMA Audiobook
Request MP3 AudiobookI actually go back and forth between "Download Kindle Ebook" and "Checkout Kindle Ebook" - Checkout has better library connotations, but Download is more evocative.
- If someone limits to a format, show only that format.
I hate that a patron can limit to see only Kindle books, and yet EPUBs will still display, if we have both formats for the same title. If someone limits to Kindle, then hide the EPUB line from the image above (and same for audiobooks).And because format is so important, it should be easier to limit to format - for instance, provide a separate interface for each format that libraries can link to, like, "click here to search for EPUB ebooks." And then, all the patron would see are EPUB ebooks, without them having to further limit to format.
The advanced search format limiter box should include options for "all Ebooks" and "all Audiobooks" options, since someone with an iPad and a Kindle app can use either format. Also, when someone limits to format in advanced search, this should stick even if they click a "Browse by Genre" link too.
Patrons should be able to save their preferred format in their account settings, so they don't have to keep limiting every time they return.
- Change the search algorithm to AND and not OR.
If you search my consortium's Overdrive catalog for "vonnegut last" there are 42 results. However, a search for just "vonnegut" gets four results, and a search for just "last" gets 38. 4+38=42, which means there is no overlap between those search terms. Most people searching for more than one word except to find items containing BOTH of those words.When our Overdrive catalog was new, and we didn't have a lot of items in the collection, using the OR operator seemed like a cheap trick to make it appear that we had a bigger collection than we did. We're past that now, and clogging up the search results with everything under the sun just adds to why Overdrive is difficult to use.
- Keyword searches should search title and author fields
This refers to the keyword search on the advanced search screen. "Keyword" seems like is should search everything, but it doesn't. Why not? If it's not actually a keyword search (like the basic search box on every page), then call it something else. Or better yet, just replace it with the actual keyword search. - Add a direct link to the software download page.
The Overdrive Help pages are getting better, but the fact that they periodically change means that library staff even need to refamiliarize themselves with how to help patrons. The most common question that sends me to the Help pages is to download Overdrive Media Console or Adobe Digital Editions. However, none of the options on the Help screen mention downloading software, and I can never remember which one it's hidden behind. Just having a "Download Free Software" option on the Help screen, which leads to a device/OS selection, would be great. - AARRGH!
I know this is beyond Overdrive, but getting things set up on an iPad can sometimes get trapped in a loop: in order to install the Overdrive app, you need to create an Adobe ID, but one of the Adobe webpages requires flash, which the iPad does not support, so you have to use a computer to actually accomplish everything. This doesn't happen every time, and I don't know why it does sometimes and not others, but I've seen patrons trapped in this loop more than once - and Overdrive gets the blame every time (justified or not), which just sours the patron on using Overdrive in the future.
I sure this is just the tip of the iceberg. Since Overdrive asked for input, please suggest what improvements you'd like to see in the comments below or tweet them to @OverDriveLibs.
*DRM is a much larger issue, and not entirely under Overdrive's control - so I won't even discuss it here, and instead just focus on their interface and things they can improve. But let's all enjoy The Brads Why DRM Doesn't Work comic once again.
July 11th, 2012 at 10:35 am
Your suggestions for OverDrive are great! I–and my patrons (different library system, same software–would be delighted to see those improvements made. OverDrive? You listening?
July 11th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
Brian-
Thanks for taking the time to share your suggestions for improving the OverDrive digital library interface. I’ll pass your ideas on to our development team for consideration. Believe it or not, we maintain a database of “New Feature Requests” for just this purpose. We’re constantly working to streamline the browse-checkout-download process, so stay tuned for good things to come!
Best,
Mike Lovett
Public Relations and Social Media Specialist
OverDrive
July 11th, 2012 at 2:06 pm
I would like to be able to browse through Adult fiction and nonfiction without having to wade through all the Children’s titles. It’s possible to search for Juvenile fiction, for example, but not Adult fiction.
July 11th, 2012 at 3:00 pm
These changes would go a long way to making OverDrive easier to use.
I wonder, though, what the necessity is in choosing a loan period at all. Why not just make it easier to check books back in early and skip the otherwise-needless step?
A tweak to suggestion #3: the format and the action should be distinct. For instance, if #4 is implemented, the additional wording of the link would just be cruft. If a bib with two different formats for items exists (especially with multiple copies per format), grouping/labelling by format would save a lot of text on the page. A single verb such as ‘Download’ would be elegant.
July 11th, 2012 at 4:44 pm
@Fisher: Thanks – and based on @Mike’s comment, hopefully Overdrive is listening.
@Mike: Thanks for listening – and if I could make another suggestion: it would be great if that “New Feature Requests” database was a public thing, with a rating on each item. That way, libraries could essentially vote for the features that are most important to them, so Overdrive could easily see which enhancements would have the biggest real-world impact – something list this
@nan: good idea – we have so few kids books that it’s usually not a problem (well, for us the problem is that we have too few kids books)
@Brad: yes, I agree – if Overdrive makes some basic improvements, other interface issues will take care of themselves. But you’re right about the loan period – I don’t know how often patrons go through the trouble of returning things early, but since that’s an option, the initial choice could be eliminated.
July 11th, 2012 at 5:43 pm
First off thanks for linking to my comic about DRM, made me smile 🙂
I told the story of my experience with overdrive and my local library at a web development conference earlier this year and it turns out there were some folks from Overdrive in the audience. I had the chance to talk to them afterwards and it was pretty insightful. I got the impression that they are really pushing to make the user experience better. I also got the impression that it’s a huge task since they have so much legacy code and requirements to deal with in the process and it’s going to be a slow moving process. But I was pleasantly surprised by how receptive they were to criticism, especially really harsh criticism. Don’t be surprised if you end up seeing your suggestions being taken up, it just might take a while.
July 11th, 2012 at 7:28 pm
With regard to item 3, why not make the image on the left BE the link to download/checkout? That’s easier and more direct, in my opinion. People are pretty accustomed to poking at what they want online.
+1 on item 4! (and on the related suggestion to allow limits on Adult/Juvenile)
With regard to items 5 & 6: YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!! A thousand times YES!
I was honestly NOT aware of the “unique” search algorithm outlined in item 5. I guess Overdrive is thinking small–as in, the library’s ebook collection is Small, so we won’t limit a search by doing what nearly every other online search provider does, and AND terms in a search string. That’s the only explanation for this approach. This is counterintuitive, to say the least.
As for item 6, I have found this to be incredibly annoying–especially since my library’s website includes a “search for” box at the top of the screen that performs a universal keyword search. Therefore, the user is left to wonder why “osborne magic” turns up one set of results when you put it in the “Search box”–but a completely different set (as in no overlap!) when you use the “Keyword” prompt on the Advanced search screen.
I also agree with the Brad C. about loan periods. Now that the software capability exists to return items at any time, this option is silly. I return items early all the time, and it’s pretty straightforward.
July 11th, 2012 at 8:21 pm
Excellent! I agree with all you suggested and have desired pretty much the exact same things. It’s really heartening that OverDrive has people who watch Twitter and at least make efforts to respond and be open to suggestions. Bodes well for friendly relations between them and librarians.
July 12th, 2012 at 8:27 am
I would also add for Overdrive to state someplace how many early returns are allowed, or if no hard number can be given for whatever reason, a warning about too many early returns.
We frequently have voracious readers who check out their five items, finish them all before the check out period expires, and then return them early so they can download and read more, all the way to the point where they hit the early return “cap” and then are blocked from downloading anything for a couple of days. Our patrons always blame the library for blocking their access. And the error message that these patrons do get is no help at all.
It would be nice if there could be a warning when returning items early that too many early returns will result in the ability to download items. I’ve heard this has to do with the contracts Overdrive has entered into in order to provide these items, but it would be nice if there could be some warning to our patrons that return items early.
July 12th, 2012 at 8:50 am
@Brad C: You’re welcome – I know DRM is a whole different kettle of fish, but your comic was still spot-on. As for development, on the one hand I would kind of expect it to be slow, because I’m sure the Overdrive code is huge and dated. But on the other hand, all of these issues have been around for awhile, and I don’t know why they haven’t been fixed before now. Whenever I talk to Overdrive people at conferences they’re always very nice, but I’m still reluctant to hold my breath for improvements.
@tlucarelli: I actually have never heard of a cap before – either our patron’s aren’t that active, haven’t mentioned it, or it isn’t in place on our catalog. I’ll email tech support and find out – thanks for the heads-up.
July 12th, 2012 at 12:30 pm
I also am very annoyed by the lack of exact search results. I often prefer sorting by “date added to site” which completely messes up the relevancy of the search results. For example, a search on my library’s Overdrive site for Nora Roberts, when ordered by date added, returns _The Queen: A Life in Brief_ by Robert Lacey. Adding quotation marks around the author’s name does fix this but I’m not sure it’s something an average patron would think to do.
July 12th, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Agree! On all points! Also – is it possible for patrons to return their books from the OverDrive site without having to go to either Manage My Kindle or Adobe Digital Editions? If not, could there be a little instructional note in My Bookshelf telling patrons how to return books? This seems to trip people up quite a lot.
July 13th, 2012 at 9:05 am
I’m with you on everything except #1. I always use the book bag. I’ll end up with 5 or so items and then weed down to my top three.
July 13th, 2012 at 10:10 am
@tlucarelli: Sure enough, there is a “early return” cap. I checked with my consortium’s Overdrive tech support person, who had never heard of it so he contacted Overdrive to find out. Overdrive is apparently very secretive about how many ebooks can be returned early before they implement their “abuse throttle” on the patron in order to prevent “abuse of the titles in the collection by patrons.” More:
“Patron’s receive this error, Error 710, when an excessive number of Adobe eBook titles have been returned in a brief period of time (7 days). We ask patrons to try checking out the titles again in a couple of days. The message should not be generated if additional titles are not checked out and returned over the next week.”
Since they specifically mention ADE, I don’t know if this applies to anything other than EPUBs.
@Heather: unfortunately, the only way I know to return things early is through the Amazon website or Adobe Digital Editions – also, I think in both cases that’s how you can delete ebooks too. And I like the idea of in-context help – it would be nice if there were help topics listed right on the My Digital Account page.
@Vicki: That certainly sounds like how it’s supposed to be used, I just never see anyone using it. I wonder if Overdrive can tell through usage stats how often more than one item is put in a bookbag. I think there could still be that kind of functionality for people that browse and winnow, yet still offer a streamlined checkout so people can easily grab one title.
July 13th, 2012 at 10:17 am
Our patrons would _strongly_ second @nan’s request for the ability to filter juvenile titles out of a search. This is a huge issue for public library users. Though children’s titles may represent a small percentage of what OverDrive offers, they represent 1/3 of my library’s downloadable collection. We’ve also run into the problem that a substantial number of the titles that have “Young Adult Fiction” as the subject are, in fact, children’s titles. (“Barbie Loves Her Friends” and “Barry the Fish with Five Fingers” are two that leap to mind.) Patrons who are doing an advanced subject search for YA titles get frustrated that so many of the search results clearly aren’t for a young adult audience.
Still very disheartened that, with the big shift to mobile devices, many of our patrons aren’t able to easily access the 80% of our downloadable audiobooks that are in the WMA format. We’ll be interested in how the audio streaming developments that OverDrive has mentioned pan out.
July 13th, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Great suggestions! I also use the bookbag function to help whittle down what I want to check out, but if you could return a checked out item right from the overdrive screen, I’m not sure I would find it useful anymore. The only addition I would have would be to have the option of return to your search results after adding an item to your bookbag. I find it works best to do an advance search to limit format, audience, and availability, and it is a shame to have to repeat the search when the back button doesn’t cooperate.
July 14th, 2012 at 9:21 am
Your suggestions are all great. My biggest frustration is actually with the Help sections. The latest changes don’t really improve things – I still always end up at that screen that says “Step 4: Download and enjoy!” or some such thing, which is not at ALL helpful given that the “download” step is where most people get stuck. I always end up looking at non-Ovedrive sites for tutorials.
I also wish their support was more helpful and easy to use. Right now you have to use a form that only works in IE, you need a login and password, and then submit the form and wait for a response. In my experience, the response I get is never very helpful (and frequently they don’t give me much of an explanation along with the “solution”) yet it always comes with a message saying “this issue is resolved and the ticket will be closed in X days.” No, it is not resolved!
Library staff simply don’t have enough information about how Overdrive works to help patrons. We have no information about patron accounts and can’t help with any real problems, and there are barriers to getting that help from Overdrive. The whole thing is honestly just becoming more and more frustrating as time goes on.
July 14th, 2012 at 10:53 am
Great post, and great advice for OverDrive. Thanks for sharing. The iPad loop thing that you talk about always slays me.
July 14th, 2012 at 11:53 am
@threegoodrats: my library’s Overdrive subscription comes through our consortium, so one of the people in our consortium’s office is the Overdrive contact – as a result, everything you say is new to me. I didn’t realize it was so difficult, and that’s discouraging – but, I guess another area they can work on improving.
@Justin: Thanks. The iPad thing amazes me too – every time I think I’m doing something wrong, but then I remember who I’m dealing with.
July 14th, 2012 at 3:39 pm
I forwarded your blog post to three of the staff members most responsible for helping our members use Overdrive (and other downloadables) at our library. This is what one had to say:
Patrons should be able to return books from their OverDrive account. This would especially be helpful for when they checkout the incorrect format. For those who don’t have Amazon accounts and checkout the Kindle book by accident (happens at least once a week) or those using iPads and accidentally checkout a PDF version while they’re browsing from a computer (this happens occasionally) telling them they have to create an Amazon account or download a software just so they can get the book off of their account is ridiculous and time consuming.
Available holds should have a “remove” link. Sometimes holds come in and patrons no longer want them, but there isn’t an obvious way to remove the available hold. Currently they have to put them in their cart and then remove it from there for it to leave their account.
A hold should be considered picked up at checkout not when it’s in the cart. I’ve had people put their holds in their cart and then browse for other books. If they don’t complete the checkout process before the 60 minutes is up or if their computer loses connection or shuts down while it’s sitting in the cart the item is taken off of their account and goes to the next person on the holds list. It should go back on their holds list not to the next person. (Of course if they get rid of the cart, which I think would be a good idea, this is a moot point.)
Checking out the wrong format. This could be resolved if when they checked out the item our patron had access to all eBook formats we lease or all audiobook formats we lease of the title. In fact I’m not really sure why they can’t do this already. It seems odd to limit our patrons to only one format during their lending period as people have multiple devices they like to use in different situations. I’m sure this has some antipiracy reasoning behind it that looks good, but is really kind of pointless. Or it could be the whole make it as difficult as possible so the patron will give up and just buy it model.
I agree with most of what is said in the email Elizabeth sent, and some things I hadn’t even thought about, although unless their OverDrive works different from our own, this can’t happen: “The Kindle item is checked out, but the EPUB line says “add to bookbag” – the person is thinking Kindle, and sees the “add to bookbag” link, so they click it.” While libraries can have multiple copies of a book, all links say the same thing when copies are available or checked out. If they have two copies of a book people can checkout either format for both copies. They don’t have one EPUB and one Kindle. It doesn’t work that way.
This isn’t really user interface, but it bugs me:
I would like for libraries to be able to monitor our patron’s OverDrive accounts. Especially holds. I shouldn’t have to contact OverDrive to see what is going on with a hold or to move a person to the top of the holds queue because they checked out the wrong format or the validation system was down when they placed a hold and they transposed numbers. OverDrive should not control this information and it really doesn’t make sense why they do. They gave us the ability to reset downloads for audiobooks, so it’s not like they can’t do this if they wanted to.
OverDrive should let libraries know when Kindle books are pulled by the publisher, not the other way around. When I asked OverDrive about this, one customer service representative replied back, “However, it is a tall task to determine which titles Amazon decides not to offer anymore throughout all of our titles that we offer. We rely on the patrons that notify us when a Kindle title brings up an error. Once we are alerted of the issue, we do remove the title from your library website so that other patrons do not encounter any further issues with that title.”
It shouldn’t be a “tall task” – this should just be the normal way of doing things. It makes the library look bad when we say we have a title and then when they do everything they’re supposed to they can’t get the title in the format we claim to have.
July 14th, 2012 at 8:00 pm
One of the things which annoys me is having to jump through hoops to return an Overdrive audiobook early. The Mac version of Overdrive Media Console does not have the ability to delete and return a title, only to delete it. On the other hand, the Windows version has a return and delete option. So if I want to return an audiobook when I have finished it, I have to also download it to a Windows netbook in order to return it early. This makes no sense to me any more than the Overdrive penalty for too many early returns of e-pub books. As a responsible borrower, I like to return an item as soon as I have finished it so that the next person on the wait list can have it. Will someone explain why this is a bad thing?
July 15th, 2012 at 8:00 pm
@EAChase: thanks, those are great suggestions. And I think your coworker is right about my mistaking it being possible to check out one format of something and the other saying “add to bookbag.” I just did some testing, and it doesn’t work that way (although, I would check out the EPUB version of something, and then redo the search for only available items, and that same title did come up again saying “place a hold” for both – at least for a few minutes, then it stopped showing up. That seemed oddly glitchy).
Anyway, the scenario that I’ve seen is someone limit to one format, and then accidentally click the “add to bookbag” for the wrong format, since both are listed (even though they’ve limited by format). Sorry for getting it wrong.
@Mary: I completely agree, and feel bad that I forgot to list that initially – I help people with that all the time, and it’s annoying to use the computer software to return the book early, and also delete it. I’m sure that’s all tied up in the DRM though, which really is the heart of the whole problem. Eventually I think publishers will see how plainly stupid and counter-productive DRM is. Regardless, yes, Overdrive should be able to communicate with the DRM in ADE or Amazon and have a built-in early return in the Overdrive account.
July 17th, 2012 at 10:35 am
I and many of my patrons like to read several types of books – mystery/thrillers, regular fiction, science fiction, biographies, etc. It would be nice if there was a way in advance search to select ALL the types of books I like and search for all at once rather than repeat the search for each type.
Also, a preferences section or a way to list more than ten titles at a time would be really nice. I hate having to hit next 10 or fifteen times if I have a long list to browse through.
July 17th, 2012 at 1:16 pm
x100 what Nan said up above.
In my case, it’s the Young Adult books showing up in the Science Fiction genre search that I’d like to be able to exclude. I feel like there are more Young Adult books than those written for adults — lots of chaff to wade through.
Also, maybe have checkboxes for format so that you can search multiple formats at once. I don’t understand why there are so many different versions of, for example e-pubs. I can use any e-pub, but I don’t appear to be able to select all e-pub types.
It might even make sense to have a search by device:
-Books to read on a Kindle
-Books to read on a Nook or other e-pub compatible e-reader
-etc.
July 18th, 2012 at 3:36 pm
[…] excellent suggestions already. Add yours.: How Would You Improve The Overdrive Interface? via @ALA_TechSource. […]
July 19th, 2012 at 5:24 pm
I love all these suggestions and do hope they implement them – especially the advanced search suggestions. I get so many complaints about not being able to exclude children’s and YA titles. We have been with OverDrive since 2005 and I can definitely attest to Support going downhill big time. I kind of think that has to do with growing so fast and trying to find a way to keep track of a huge volume of help tickets. Hopefully they are looking into this since I used to brag about their Support.
One complaint I have been making for years is that they measure every possible metric except the number of times someone clicks the search button. There are only 2 places this can be done – submit for author, title, subject and search in the advanced screen. I’d also love to know if they were successful (any results) or not but I’d just take a simple number of searches right now.
July 20th, 2012 at 10:22 pm
I emailed Mike Lovett from Overdrive to find out what he thought about all the suggestions – he emailed me back a response and gave me permission to post it here:
——————————————
Hi Brian-
I’ll try my best to address the status of your suggestions and those in the comments to your blog.
Your suggestions about bookbag, reducing/combining checkout steps, clarifying format selection and modifying the search algorithm are all among our New Feature Requets on file, and the development team will consider-and likely implement-many of these when we redesign our Digital Library Reserve (DLR) interface. The DLR redesign is a big project, however, so I don’t have a timetable for completion.
Your “direct link to software download page” is a solution that we’re currently working on, and libraries could see this change soon.
Our “New Feature Requests” database is part of our internal customer relationship management system, which is not a public interface. But you’re right that the New Feature Requests process could benefit from even more user input, and we’re working to make changes in this regard.
Let me see if I can address some other user suggestions:
For nan’s suggestion to make the categories more specific, that request is in our system and our metadata team will consider.
For Brad Czerniak and others’ suggestions about loan period/ early return, our agreements with publishers determine the number and frequency of checkouts per patron, so it’s not likely that libraries will be able to offer unlimited checkouts/returns anytime soon.
For David’s suggestion about the ability to click a jacket image to download an eBook, that’s precisely the thinking behind OverDrive Read, our browser-based eReading solution coming later this year (http://www.overdrive.com/news/OverDrive-Introduces-Browser-based-eBook-Reader-). For traditional eBook downloads, the click-jacket-to-download function is among the features the dev team will consider when redesigning the DLR interface.
For tlucarelli’s request about the approaching-max-early-returns notification, I’ll pass that one on to the dev team.
As for Christy’s comment about the WMA compatibility issue, the streaming audiobook option coming later this year will allow users to access many audiobook titles that are currently unavailable due to DRM/device compatibility (http://overdrive.com/News/OverDrive-to-Provide-Streaming-Audiobooks-to-Libraries-and-Schools).
To address threegoodrats’ comments about the support process, keep in mind that if libraries would rather not act as the intermediary between patrons and OverDrive support, we do offer Frontline support service on a subscription basis, by which patrons can directly connect with OverDrive support.
I’ll forward EAChase’s suggestion about the holds/checkout functionality on to our dev team.
Scott Thomson’s suggestion about expanding search specificity is under consideration for our DLR redesign. It is currently possible to view more than 10 search results, though the placement of that option may vary by library.
I’m sure there are some suggestions I’ve overlooked, but I think this covers the majority. Streamlining the user interface/experience is the primary goal underlying our Next Generation initiative. To find out more about OverDrive Read, streaming audiobooks, OverDrive APIs, the all-new Content Reserve and more, check out this press release:
http://overdrive.com/News/OverDrives-Next-Generation-eBook-Service-to-Extend-Value-of-Digital-Libraries
Thanks to everyone for the input. We’re working hard over here to make these and other improvements to your OverDrive service!
Best,
Mike
——————————————
Thanks Mike, for listening and being responsive to libraries.
July 21st, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Yay for my complaint producing worthwhile results! I use OverDrive as a patron mainly for downloadable audiobooks for traveling with my children, so you all can see how my experience as a patron hits on so, so many of these areas. And I would consider myself a super-user: I’ve been working with downloadable collections, from supporting, to purchasing, to managing, etc for seven years.
October 3rd, 2012 at 3:32 pm
[…] 2012 I think I'm a little behind the curve on this, but since there were so many great comments on how to improve the Overdrive interface, I thought this would be worth talking […]
December 24th, 2012 at 10:55 am
First: I LOVE IT! I use my WiFi, iPhone, Adobe ePub format (I own a Nook Tablet that boots as an Android). My library (or somebody) limits me to 14 days checked out with no renewal, 4 at a time (rarely used). I delete from iPhone and its removed from Library account. I go through a book every 3 to 4 days; hubby & I go through another 4 to 7 books in a 2 week period.
I love it enough, I would pay for an advanced version. (It would be great if I could purchase eBooks to be donated directly to my Library through B&N or any other outlet. I don’t use the Nook to purchase books because I don’t need to retain copies of most of what I’ve read.)
GOOD: bookbag – I select books available and then whittle the bookbag down to specifically the one(s) I want.
BAD: 14 checkouts & returns in 7 days. I read too much, too quickly and my library choices are limited, so when a book is available I can’t wait 24 hours to check it out – it’s not there the next day. AGAIN, I would be willing to pay for more options!
NEEDED: Some way to keep track of what I’ve read. Perhaps, when I click Delete then Return, it could include an option to save the Author & Title to a list on my device. Charge us for it! An APP?
Thank you.
December 24th, 2012 at 11:06 am
Just read the Oct 3, 2012 re New Overdrive Interface.
I think the Buy Now has been active for a while – It’s been on mine since I started a year ago. I tried it once – it seemed to work except I was too frustrated with B&N, new NOOK Tablet, etc. to complete the purchase.
I too wish there was an option to Buy for my Library and that the donation option offered gave me a warm fuzzy – I have no way of knowing if my Library gets that credit or not.
As for ADS – I don’t look at them.
As for selling eBooks – no problem! My sister buys eBooks and I realize that the Library lending function limits the Publishers’ & Authors’ income stream.
Again – thank you for doing this (both OverDrive & BrianH.)