Text Ad Beta Testers Thread

Hi Nick,

The "test ad" works properly ;)
How can I test it on my blog?

best regards

the simpler the better...

Easy to use (read as peace of cake for creating an AD). However there is no way one can reduce or increase font size. It will be nice if this feature can be added...

I am not sure if you are allowed to display ad to other blog; until and unless you purchase it. May be Nick will through out some light...

What you want to know:
1. No problems
2. No problems
3. Not being able to change styles for different words
4. Match the preview closer to the design

My unsolicited feedback:
Since you can not change font size or differentiate styles within the box it looks virtually unusable. I can not imagine how you could make a semi-professional looking ad. I would not want an ad made with this on my sites, so I doubt that a quality publisher would accept an ad made with this. Sorry.

Also the preview doesn't match the design view, see the following example. I would hope that the design view could match the preview more closely, or the font size of the preview could be adjusted to match the design.
-- In design view this is how the lines break using Georgia font:
RSS feeds of
refurbished
Apple
products in
the US, CA,
UK Stores.
-- In preview it breaks like this:
RSS feeds
of
refurbished
Apple
products in
the US, CA, (off the graphic)

Hi,

I tested the tool for around 30 min approx and came up with these results.I would answer one by one as per the questions that has been asked by you.

Q)1.Did you have any problems using it? (please tell us your broser and OS)

A) My Browswer is IE 7 and OS is WINDOWS XP sp2

I didnt had any problem using this tool except at one place when i was choosing colour it didnt work i.e when i chose a different colour the change didnt happened.It was for 2-3 times only.After that it wokred fine.

Q).Did you have problems understanding what to do?

A) It's simple to use and was not much of diffculty except one place
"HOW MUCH I CAN WRITE IN THE BOX".I will discuss about
it in next answer.

Q)3.What do you hate the most about this feature?

I kept both the simplicity of text link ads and also what a advertiser will think when he has to create a ad using this tool.The list of what i dont like are

(1) I dont know how much i can write in the text box
because only when i see the privew i come to know i am supposed to
write what should be visible in text box.

(2) I cant reduce the size of text of some part of my add
i.e suppose if i want to write like this

All text has to be of one size.
But i want "TechSpot" to be little bigger than rest, i cant.

(3) No option for underlining.

(4) Design Time View is different from Privew time....i came to this
conclusion because It was not know to me how much i can write and
i wrote more.So when previewed some text were not visible.Limit the
text box so it doesnt allow to add more text

Q)4 What would you do to make it better?

Keeping the simplicity in mind i would suggest the following features
from the point of advertisers.

(1) A Interactive colour chooser which can give me a
dynamic preview of how my text will look like when i match with
background and making of add will be easy.

(2) Ability to choose different color for different part of the whole text

(3) A Text Size Chooser so i can put a little more
data.

(4) A Dynamic Previewer .

(5) Ability to choose the background color of the hover action and
background colour of popup window.

Till now i am able to found out these points.I hope this will be useful
for performancing.Any comments on my test result are welcome, i always
like to correct myself

Thnx and regards
Ashish

To avoid repeating the same comments I agree with everything said iolaire and ashishmohta.
1. Did you have any problems using it? (please tell us your browser and OS)
No it worked fine for "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061010 Firefox/2.0 - Build ID: 2006101023".
I only found a small bug - being unable to choose FF0000 for text/foreground color.
(Checking the javascript error in FireBug it seems you have added an extra ' in 'FF0000''. (line 1 - create))

2. Did you have problems understanding what to do?
No using the create add tool is straightforward.
Anyone with basic "word-processing" skills & knowing what URLs are should be able to use it.

3. What do you hate the most about this feature?
Not being able to create fully formated "rich text" texts.

4. What would you do to make it better?
Maybe using a "modified" HTML WYSIWYG editor to create the add?
Add a few "pre-styled" / "professionally designed" backgrounds / borders / color themes?
Using JAVA/Flash/new canvas element?

Overall it is a positive experience / Being able to create advertisements (and especially simple " formatted HTML / Rich Text / WYSIWYG ads) online is a great feature!

This seems to do what you intend it to do - and no problems in functionality for me with WinXP and Firefox 1.5.0.7.

The only thing that was unclear, at first, was that there was going to be a second page for more info - it says "Step 1" but would be nice to have some hint of what "Step 2" will be.

Rich text formatting of individual words and characters would be nice, but more important to me would be the ability to change the size of text.

Bottom line: as a simple way to create text link ads, it looks like you're on the right track with this.

Jen

Fantastic feedback guys, really really excellent stuff! Thanks.

There are some things we'll do, some we can't and some we won't. Largely based on your feedback we'll put a couple of the more popular requests in as I dont think they'll complicate the process but will make it better.

I'll hand over to chris for more detail as he's doing the tech stuff on this project.

thanks again, and please keep the feedback coming, it's invaluable!

Because the textbox is styled with css but the final image is created with PHP it is very hard to get them to match exactly but I think the idea of a live preview is a very good solution to this. Font size selection should be straightforward enough too. I will get working on these changes now, thanks guys.

Great work!
Thanks Nick and Chris ;-)

* vertical alignment?

* don't like having more than one step - maybe have the preview AJAXy (lightbox maybe?) ... anyway, one screen to input everything, preview it, then upload from there

* Mouseover Text - tell me upfront i have to supply more than 20 chars. also tell me i can't use dashes, etc.

* try again - little confusing terminology. i thought (at first) it would reload the page with the changes i'd made to mouseover text, etc.

* put the form elements to the right of the preview box? just a little scrolling for some, but should/could fit to the right of the preview

* bigger font selection? (bring your own font??)

really slick, though.

keep up the good work guys.

-kpaul

1. Did you have any problems using it? (please tell us your broser and OS)
FireFox 2.0, WinXP Pro (SP2)
Formatting was ok. Technically, no problems.

2. Did you have problems understanding what to do?
Yes.
-Step one, creating colour scheme. Would have been nice to have feedback (what's my ad going to look like) while colour selection was occurring.
-What's the difference between Go and Preview on Step One?
-No clear directions as to what each button does.
-No guidance on page as to how much text makes a good looking ad, or not. Again, a live feedback of the design would be helpful.
-User selectable font size would be helpful. Default font seems too large.
-No way to 'edit' an ad once it's been designed. What if the colour is slightly wrong, or I change my mind.

3. What do you hate the most about this feature?
Font size and lack of ability to edit completed ad.

4. What would you do to make it better?
Allow font sizing, ad editing, insert a live preview/feedback mode so the user can view the design as they're creating it, and add more guidance text to walk the user through the design process.

Ok, all that said, this is an awesome start! Functionality is there and working!! Now comes the hard 20%.

Thanks!

Hello, Nick:

1- First of all, as a Spanish blogger I tryed acccents and "ñ". For now you are only accepting Englsih caracters. OK. It´s a first stage. But consider that.

2- Second: I tryed to put ONLY A WORD in bold. Not possible. The same with justifying. I think it´s interesting to have the posibility to put the important word in bold and to choose alignement -this second part it´s not so important because it´s only a short text.

3- Third: Appearance change from pre-preview -low quality, sorry- to preview.

4- Colors: It works fine choosing colors for text, bottom and border and the palette is enough to create a good "text ad".

5- The text to help create says "When you're done, just hit save." It´s not correct. You hit preview to finish the process in the second window.

6- Clicking on CREATE NEW ad, I get by default the last created ad. I think it should begin empty.

7- Clicking UPLOAD NEW ad, appears my current ad. But ther is no possibility to surf my PC to UPLOAD a NEW ad.

8- In LIST ADS, when I click neither on my ad image or in the link inserted in the text that appears "on mouse over", I return to LIST ADS and I don´t get my target, in this test, my blog.

OVERALL: VERY GOOD WORK but with a little to "refine".

I hope this will help.

Sorry, I forgot to explain my platform:

Windows 2000 Professional.
Firefox 1.5.0.8

>>Clicking on CREATE NEW ad, I get by default the last created ad. I think it should begin empty.

Yes, it will clear when you actually submit the ad, and not before (submit with hover text etc etc) otherwise there is no way to go back and refine your ad before you submit.

Great points ebrito, we'll have version 2 out later today!

...seem to be wrong:

pre-preview: http://brito.es/test/Ad-before-preview.jpg
preview: http://brito.es/test/Ad-on-preview.jpg

Did you have any problems using it? (please tell us your browser and OS)

- None whatsoever. I tried it out on Windows XP (Firefox 1.5.07 and IE7) and Safari 2.0.4 using OS X

Did you have problems understanding what to do?

- It was really straight-forward and I like the concept of adding creating text-ads in addition to images.

What do you hate the most about this feature?

- Not being able to change the text size and the fact that every change applied to the entire ad. I would have liked to see the ability to do the first part of the ad in a different font, size, and color.

What would you do to make it better?

- Definitely fix the font size and add more customization to the rich text features.

Thanks guys for such a great job! Keep up the good work

Just gave this a shot and have a few suggestions.

1. Could it be possible to have some kind of background images choice. Just having color as the background makes the button look to plain

2. There should be some kind of limit on the amount of text to be entered.

3. More fonts would be great

4. On the Upload New page, instead of Upload, wouldn't Create be a better word?

5. Ability to use exclamation and hyphen on the Mouseover text field

Would be nice to see more improvements to this tool.

OK beta testers, you should now see a new version if you go take a look. One of the main suggestions was a live preview. So now rather than a CSS simulation of the final image, when you type you will see the actual image updated in realtime. Rather than attempt to match two very different representations this has meant the css-tastic text box is no longer needed and a plainer version will suffice now. In addition you have the option of a variety of font sizes.

Please take another look and let us know what you think.

I like the idea of a choice of backgrounds, if this version goes down ok with you guys I think that will be one of the next features we look at.

Hello Nick.

My platform now is Windows XP Home SP1 and Firefox 1.5.0.8
I will use same point explained in previos test.

1- First of all, as a Spanish blogger I tryed acccents and "ñ". For now you are only accepting Englsih caracters. OK. It´s a first stage. But consider that.

NOW: You can use accents, "¡", "¿" and "ñ" when editing the graphic, but not in second window.

2- Second: I tryed to put ONLY A WORD in bold. Not possible. The same with justifying. I think it´s interesting to have the posibility to put the important word in bold and to choose alignement -this second part it´s not so important because it´s only a short text.

NOW: Still the same.

3- Third: Appearance change from pre-preview -low quality, sorry- to preview.

NOW: Corrected, WYSIWYG!

4- Colors: It works fine choosing colors for text, bottom and border and the palette is enough to create a good "text ad".

NOW: The same, OK.

5- The text to help create says "When you're done, just hit save." It´s not correct. You hit preview to finish the process in the second window.

NOW: Better text explanation.

6- Clicking on CREATE NEW ad, I get by default the last created ad. I think it should begin empty.

NOW: I created the new with the text used as the example, so, with no "memory" fromprevious session. But when trying to create another one, my last creation appeared as an example. I think its easy to clean text, but, maybe, using last created ad could help user to create the new one. So, up to you.

7- Clicking UPLOAD NEW ad, appears my current ad. But ther is no possibility to surf my PC to UPLOAD a NEW ad.

NOW: You can upload images.

8- In LIST ADS, when I click neither on my ad image or in the link inserted in the text that appears "on mouse over", I return to LIST ADS and I don´t get my target, in this test, my blog.

NOW: The same. I think you should jump to target to test funcionality.

9- NEW bug?:
Creating ad, in first window this what happens when you put mouse over one option:
http://brito.es/test/PFAds-SelectedButton.jpg.
It apperas a blue half square over selected option and not centered.

10- Call to action: only English text with no special caracters like ",".

OVERALL: VERY GOOD IMPROVEMENT but with a less to "refine".

I hope this will help.

On list ads screen:

HOVER TEXT shows hover text WITHOUT TITLE and THE LINK TO TARGET but not Call to action text.

I think this section should show: Hover text -complete, as it appears on mouse over ad- and call to action ONLY.
You need an extra section with target. In this one, show target http address.

I like where you are headed with this and rather than repeat much of what has already been said I can tell you the pages worked fine on

Vista RC 2
Firefox 2
IE7

but Maxthon wouldn't let me into the first page

The new preview & text size selection features work fine (FF 2.0 / on Win 98 and Win XP) and allow the creation of usable low quality ads.
However options to style selected text differently (rich edit) are missing and selecting FF0000 from color picker still gives an javascript error.
By adding some backgrounds / borders the editors usability will increase a lot. With a nice background even plain text can become presentable.
Keep up the good work!

I can't get it to error selecting FF0000, which colour picker was it that errors for you?

I find it great for a quick ad. Would be nice to be able to emphasize/bold/resize selected words but it works well for what it is.

1) No problems on Firefox 1.5.08 with WinXP SP2
2) No problems understanding
3) Don't hate anything.
4) More font choices, backgrounds and maybe border styles would be great. As it is, you're going to get loads of identical-looking ads.

Hello Chris, to make it easier I have recorded the bug causing actions using Wink.
Hope it helps!

Thanks, I will get that fixed

Is better Chris.

Would love to see the next version with the background.

Would also be great if we can selectively format text. That way emphasis can be easily added.

Ajay

This is now live and we'll be officially announcing early next week....

thanks for all your help guys..

sorry for testing this ads so late.

for your question,

1. No problem! (Windows XP SP2, Mozilla firefox 2.0)
2. Its easy to create the ads. So no problem.
3. limited text fonts and sizes. The hover text is too far from the ads.
4. I know the point is for simplicity, but it would be great if advertisers can put a small image in the ads.