I don't know what the fuck NYPL is thinking. Their website had noticeable design problems. For example, if you wanted to request an offsite book, it took you to a completely different, older version of the site and you manually had to input information that should've been already available if you were logged in. A few weeks ago they rolled out a new webpage and I hoped that some of these issues would be resolved.

Of course, the situation was just made worse.

When you create a website, you have to consider two things: ease and aesthetics. It's better for the user to see more information in one location so they're not constantly flipping back and forth between pages, yet simultaneously you don't want it to seem cluttered or confusing. On the original page, the checkouts were highlighted different colors to give you a sense of how much time was left until the due date. That's a good choice because without even looking too deeply, I can easily sense from a glance whether I'm fucked or not.

They removed those little things that helped the user experience and added steps that previously could've been done in one. For example, on your "checked out" page, there was an option to add the book to your "completed," "for later," or "ongoing" lists. That meant not only could I do that, but I also had information on the titles I had out and their due dates. All that could be done on one page. Now if I want to move something from "for later" to "completed," I have to go to that last (requires to proceed through two pages), manually go down that list and somehow find the book, then change it. When that could've been done with ease before.

If that's not enough, they completely screwed up the app. Originally it was probably one of the slowest apps I've ever used, but it was functional. It had four tabs: one for browsing, one for searching, one to check your book statuses, and one for library locations. They completely scrapped all that and their app literally is just a link to their mobile website, and we all know how great those are.

Seriously, whom the fuck did NYPL hire because they should fire them and demand their money back. I don't know how you make something demonstrably worse. How do you screw this up? It's 2015. Surely web design schools know by now how this works and teaches its students accordingly.