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We were discussing this in the Know Direction Discord. The download filters seem to be very messed up.
I have a 3rd-party 1e product (The Very Last Book About Mounted Combat) which seems to be categorized as (at least) part of Agents of Edgewatch and as a 'Flip-Mat Classic'. Apparently only 3 of the downloads are categorized as PDFs (including the mounted combat book previously mentioned).
If I filter on 'Lost Omens', I get a ton of random 1e books, including things like Bestiaries.
Adding my voice here, the filters absolutely do not work.
I'm on Chrome/Mac (both latest)
I get starfinder in my pathfinder filters. I get the wrong supplements mixed in with... well basically any filter attempt. Here's an example screenshot.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/675751257729794060/997189732448612 362/unknown.png?width=1753&height=337
Update to note that I cleared both cache and cookies, and still got the same weird results.
Software Architect
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The download filters do not work properly. Part of the issue is due to inconsistent metadata tagging on various products, and another is a few bugs in the filtering implementation.
Tech handles the bugs side of things, and it's one of those situations where we're already completely overhauling the page, so it doesn't make much sense to spend time correcting bugs that won't exist after we do.
The most effective way to search for things currently on the downloads page, unfortunately, is using ctrl-f to have your browser search the page.
Thanks!
Is there a timeline for the page being overhauled?
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Software Architect
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Thanks!
Is there a timeline for the page being overhauled?
The short answer is no. The long answer is the rest of this post:
We already have the designs, mock-ups, and proof-of-concepts completed for a fantastic new downloads page, and have for quite some time. Unfortunately, page and usability overhauls that you all ask for (and that we love to deliver) are frequently trapped in a prioritization limbo.
Tech handles not only the Paizo website, but also our backend services (such as warehousing, order processing, etc.), as well as internal infrastructure for our employees (corporate network, administrative services, VPN connectivity for work-from-home, tech support for employee workstations, etc.). Across all these responsibilities, you can roughly break down our prioritization queue like so:
1. Legal requirements - we have to follow the law and remain in compliance with regulations, both in the USA and abroad. This includes following privacy laws, tax compliance, data security obligations, etc. Preventing and remedying these issues as they come up takes priority over everything else we do.
2. Ethical requirements - we have to ensure that we're doing business ethically, which from a technical perspective means fixing bugs or data mistakes that might mislead the public, especially if such bugs might affect how people make purchases.
3. Essential business functions - we have to be able to advertise, sell, and ship/distribute our products effectively. This also includes proactive maintenance of our infrastructure. Without these, we have no business and no jobs, and our customers have no new products or content.
4. User experience - we want our users to have a wonderful experience navigating and using the site. Issues in this category are often inconveniences, but either have workarounds or affect non-essential site features. Things like overhauling the downloads page fall into this category.
5. Sizzle - These are all the delightful, but entirely unessential improvements that are great to get to when we can.
As new tasks are created, they may jump the queue depending on their priority. Unfortunately, this means that lower priority tasks are frequently bumped back as newer high-priority tasks come in. This is supremely frustrating for both us and you, since we love releasing visible improvements to the website that make users happy, and users love seeing their experiences improved and their problems resolved in a timely manner.
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Even fixing the metadata at the rate of one or two files a day starting with Paizo releases would help somewhat over time, shouldn't require authorization to fix already known internal issues, and would be necessary en mass anyway to get the page working properly when the big updates can actually get done.
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Thanks for that transparent and thorough response, Brian!
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I am bumping this to bring the issue up again, but with another aspect.
I tried filtering out files today, and it didn't really work.
What occurred to me though was that I have so many digital files it can be hard to scroll through all of them.
What I was trying to do was specifically get PF2e items downloaded. There didn't really seem to be an option to only display PF2e items.
Just putting an idea out there that with the new webpage implementation of these items, could there be an option where if you just want to download or see items from one edition or game (PF1e vs. SF vs. PF2e) that you could do so?
I got confused over different items (some which seem to have the same name, such as the Advanced Players guide...guessed which one was for 2e) and wasn't sure which one was for which game.
Thank you for your time.
Sad to see that this is still an issue.
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Thanks!
Is there a timeline for the page being overhauled?We already have the designs, mock-ups, and proof-of-concepts completed for a fantastic new downloads page, and have for quite some time. Unfortunately, page and usability overhauls that you all ask for (and that we love to deliver) are frequently trapped in a prioritization limbo.
3. Essential business functions - we have to be able to advertise, sell, and ship/distribute our products effectively. This also includes proactive maintenance of our infrastructure. Without these, we have no business and no jobs, and our customers have no new products or content.
4. User experience - we want our users to have a wonderful experience navigating and using the site. Issues in this category are often inconveniences, but either have workarounds or affect non-essential site features. Things like overhauling the downloads page fall into this category.
This prioritization is a classic one from IT since the 90s. I appreciate the sentiments having run help desks and special projects as an architect for the past 25 years, but I would strongly implore you to consider the following points:
1. User Experience (UX) isn't an afterthought anymore - everything is getting too complex and digital platforms everywhere are going to live or die by whether their services are painful to use. UX review and design should be a required element of everything you produce, just like editing is for the written word. Whether it's a printed book or a website forum, how your customer interacts with it and whether that interaction is pleasant and compelling should not be an optional idea.
I urge you to consider a dedicated and trained UX designer; it's a role that engineers scoff at, and think they can do themselves, but most are terrible at it due to the curse of knowledge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge).
2. Digital first / only approaches have exploded in importance since the pandemic. Paizo has been years behind since 2015 or so, and the market is quickly shifting at a speed it's never done before. It's not an understatement to call it transformative. We can't rely on "what you've always done" to make sense of this - check your analytics for how many users are getting PDFs only and VTT only products, for instance. I would imagine you're seeing a huge spike since 2020 that has only paced upwards.
3. Hasbro has given you one hell of a gift, and a lot of it was around their digital platform and experience. Thousands of customers have said very loudly (with their wallets) that they care about these things. To think that the website experience is not business critical in importance to your customers is absolutely outdated and dangerous thinking as a whole.
4. Splitting your tasks between Mission Critical and Not Mission Critical is absolutely smart, but each task (mission critical or not) should absolutely include User Experience 100%. The PDF downloads page, by your own definition, should be mission critical - it's how you distribute all of your PDFs in a secured fashion. Why would you think it's not mission critical to make that bottle neck as painless and pleasant as you can for your customers?
I wish the best for you and your team.