SecretSoul
Traxsource Level 2 Review
* click on a thumbnail to view a larger picture.
First impressions of the site were very good. The layout and general appearance had been improved, whilst keeping the “Traxsource” style that we have been familiar with for almost 2 years. Everything was far easier to see on the home page, without the need to scroll down much at all. And the overall feel was more modern. More importantly, I was relieved to see that Traxsource hadn’t followed the path of other digital download site with Macromedia Flash. The other downloads sites that use Flash seem to me to be awkward to navigate around and are often frustratingly slow.
New Features
The first thing I noticed, on the homepage, was the label quicksearch box. Next to some labels was a small “N” icon, indicating that there was a new release under that label. I later discovered that you can customise the new releases to suit your needs (see My What’s New). Another new feature on the quicksearch menu was discovered after I set My Favourite Labels. Any labels set as your favourite automatically go to the top on the quicksearch menu, and are shown with a small “F” icon. These new features will definitely help the user browse through things more quickly.
Another small change was in the window in the top right hand corner of the screen, where you are shown how many items are in your basket and the total cost. Now we are also able to see how many items are in our wishlist, and what the total cost of those will be.
My What’s New
You need a minute to have a look at the options in this section, because the potential is amazing. I'm pretty sure it's unique to Traxsource, and will certainly help regular shoppers like myself.
You can change the definition of "What's New" to suit your needs. i.e. you can display any new additions to the site since you:
a) last logged in
b) last made a purchase
c) last 24 hours
d) last 7 days
and any of these options can be set to be the default through My Options. Personally I set mine to "Last Login" as it means that each time I login I will only be informed of new additions since the last time I checked. Another handy feature in here is "only show my favourite labels". As mentioned before, you can select any number of labels as your favourite, and so if you only want to see the latest additions on your favourite labels, then you can do so.
Still in the same window, I made my next discovery. Collapsible listings. This is another feature that can be set/customised through My Options, and I set the default to keep all tracks collapsed. The advantage here is being able to see more titles on the screen, but rather than having to click and go into an indidual title screen to listen to a preview, or to see what mixes the title includes, it can simply be expanded. Especially handy for when searching!
And finally, the ability to click on the label or artist in this window is a nice little feature too. This will result in displaying all releases from that label or artist.
My History
This part baffled me at first, I wasn't sure what the purpose was. Maybe to display tracks that I had bought in the past? No, there was another section for that. After moving on and browsing round a bit more, I came back to it and realised what it was. It displays the last 10-20 titles (you can set how many in my options) that you have recently looked at or previewed. It's not a feature I used during the test, but I thought back to times in the past where I had clicked to listen to something, and then moved on whilst it was playing. Then after a minute or so I'd think "What was that tune I just checked?". This will be essential with any big spenders, like myself.
My Cart / My Wishlist
No major changes in these parts, although the titles in here are also collapsible, which is very handy. Unfortunately it doesn't keep the tracks collapsed regardless of your default setting within these two windows, so you have to do so manually each time you check them.
My Purchases
How many requests are posted on the forum for users wanting thier download receipts from past transactions? Quite a lot, and the excellent support team deal with each and every one by email. Well that no longer needs to be the case, as each user can check thier previous transactions as well as emailing or printing individual receipts by simply clicking one button. Honestly, I tested this myself, and it couldn't be easier, you press print and a few seconds later a nicely presented, easy to read receipt is printed. The only downside to this section of the site is being able to see the small fortune I've spent on the site since day one...very scary, haha.
My Downloads
To be honest, there's not much to say about this. It's the same as the old site, and ever since they added the "Download entire order as ZIP" feature, it's 100% complete.
The NEW Search Engine
The new search engine works fantastically. I compared it to the original Traxsource one by searching, under remixers, for anything by Jazz-N-Groove. Searching with different variations gave me some intersting results...
a) Jazz-N-Groove
The original search engine brought back 30 results. Whilst the new search engine gave me 151.
b) Jazz N Groove
This time, the original engine returned 11 matches. The new one gave me the same 151 results.
c) Jazz Groove
This time the original search engine came back with 0 results. But the new search engine, unsurprisingly gave me 151.
Clearly making it much easier to find what I needed.
Miscellaneous Improvements
There's now a well designed Help section, to help us all get to grips with the new features and for all the new members too.
And the My Options gives some great features that allow each user to customise Traxsource to his/her needs.
What Would I Improve
There are a couple of small bits that I think would improve the site and make browsing that little bit easier. Nothing major, but these would make it perfect, in my opinion...
Firstly, when browsing individual titles there is the Customers who bought... part at the bottom. I would be helpful if it were possible to click on the artists or labels within that to bring up all other tracks from that artist or label.
Finally, a subject that is often brought up on the forum, is the matter of cd stickers. Now, as I understand it, for various reasons, the stickers are the responsibilty of the individual records labels and not of Traxsource. But, what if there was somekid of online CD Sticker generator? The use could select one of 2 or 3 preset layouts, select the record label (and the logo would be added and automatically) and then type in the relevant text fields (i.e. artist/title/mixes/cat no/etc.) and it would create a high quality jpg, ready for printing. This could also be extended to creating custom compilations too. I'm guessing this may be difficult to implement, but if done right it would be an amazing feature for the many users who like cd stickers.
Final Summary
Overall I think that the Traxsource team have done an excellent job with level 2, and have managed to put it ahead of the competition. It is easily the best designed, and most user friendly digital download site I have come across.
My rating: 9/10
* click on a thumbnail to view a larger picture.
First impressions of the site were very good. The layout and general appearance had been improved, whilst keeping the “Traxsource” style that we have been familiar with for almost 2 years. Everything was far easier to see on the home page, without the need to scroll down much at all. And the overall feel was more modern. More importantly, I was relieved to see that Traxsource hadn’t followed the path of other digital download site with Macromedia Flash. The other downloads sites that use Flash seem to me to be awkward to navigate around and are often frustratingly slow.
New Features
The first thing I noticed, on the homepage, was the label quicksearch box. Next to some labels was a small “N” icon, indicating that there was a new release under that label. I later discovered that you can customise the new releases to suit your needs (see My What’s New). Another new feature on the quicksearch menu was discovered after I set My Favourite Labels. Any labels set as your favourite automatically go to the top on the quicksearch menu, and are shown with a small “F” icon. These new features will definitely help the user browse through things more quickly.
Another small change was in the window in the top right hand corner of the screen, where you are shown how many items are in your basket and the total cost. Now we are also able to see how many items are in our wishlist, and what the total cost of those will be.
My What’s New
You need a minute to have a look at the options in this section, because the potential is amazing. I'm pretty sure it's unique to Traxsource, and will certainly help regular shoppers like myself.
You can change the definition of "What's New" to suit your needs. i.e. you can display any new additions to the site since you:
a) last logged in
b) last made a purchase
c) last 24 hours
d) last 7 days
and any of these options can be set to be the default through My Options. Personally I set mine to "Last Login" as it means that each time I login I will only be informed of new additions since the last time I checked. Another handy feature in here is "only show my favourite labels". As mentioned before, you can select any number of labels as your favourite, and so if you only want to see the latest additions on your favourite labels, then you can do so.
Still in the same window, I made my next discovery. Collapsible listings. This is another feature that can be set/customised through My Options, and I set the default to keep all tracks collapsed. The advantage here is being able to see more titles on the screen, but rather than having to click and go into an indidual title screen to listen to a preview, or to see what mixes the title includes, it can simply be expanded. Especially handy for when searching!
And finally, the ability to click on the label or artist in this window is a nice little feature too. This will result in displaying all releases from that label or artist.
My History
This part baffled me at first, I wasn't sure what the purpose was. Maybe to display tracks that I had bought in the past? No, there was another section for that. After moving on and browsing round a bit more, I came back to it and realised what it was. It displays the last 10-20 titles (you can set how many in my options) that you have recently looked at or previewed. It's not a feature I used during the test, but I thought back to times in the past where I had clicked to listen to something, and then moved on whilst it was playing. Then after a minute or so I'd think "What was that tune I just checked?". This will be essential with any big spenders, like myself.
My Cart / My Wishlist
No major changes in these parts, although the titles in here are also collapsible, which is very handy. Unfortunately it doesn't keep the tracks collapsed regardless of your default setting within these two windows, so you have to do so manually each time you check them.
My Purchases
How many requests are posted on the forum for users wanting thier download receipts from past transactions? Quite a lot, and the excellent support team deal with each and every one by email. Well that no longer needs to be the case, as each user can check thier previous transactions as well as emailing or printing individual receipts by simply clicking one button. Honestly, I tested this myself, and it couldn't be easier, you press print and a few seconds later a nicely presented, easy to read receipt is printed. The only downside to this section of the site is being able to see the small fortune I've spent on the site since day one...very scary, haha.
My Downloads
To be honest, there's not much to say about this. It's the same as the old site, and ever since they added the "Download entire order as ZIP" feature, it's 100% complete.
The NEW Search Engine
The new search engine works fantastically. I compared it to the original Traxsource one by searching, under remixers, for anything by Jazz-N-Groove. Searching with different variations gave me some intersting results...
a) Jazz-N-Groove
The original search engine brought back 30 results. Whilst the new search engine gave me 151.
b) Jazz N Groove
This time, the original engine returned 11 matches. The new one gave me the same 151 results.
c) Jazz Groove
This time the original search engine came back with 0 results. But the new search engine, unsurprisingly gave me 151.
Clearly making it much easier to find what I needed.
Miscellaneous Improvements
There's now a well designed Help section, to help us all get to grips with the new features and for all the new members too.
And the My Options gives some great features that allow each user to customise Traxsource to his/her needs.
What Would I Improve
There are a couple of small bits that I think would improve the site and make browsing that little bit easier. Nothing major, but these would make it perfect, in my opinion...
Firstly, when browsing individual titles there is the Customers who bought... part at the bottom. I would be helpful if it were possible to click on the artists or labels within that to bring up all other tracks from that artist or label.
Finally, a subject that is often brought up on the forum, is the matter of cd stickers. Now, as I understand it, for various reasons, the stickers are the responsibilty of the individual records labels and not of Traxsource. But, what if there was somekid of online CD Sticker generator? The use could select one of 2 or 3 preset layouts, select the record label (and the logo would be added and automatically) and then type in the relevant text fields (i.e. artist/title/mixes/cat no/etc.) and it would create a high quality jpg, ready for printing. This could also be extended to creating custom compilations too. I'm guessing this may be difficult to implement, but if done right it would be an amazing feature for the many users who like cd stickers.
Final Summary
Overall I think that the Traxsource team have done an excellent job with level 2, and have managed to put it ahead of the competition. It is easily the best designed, and most user friendly digital download site I have come across.
My rating: 9/10
发表时间 Wed 23 Aug 06 @ 7:02 pm
Rune (DJ-In-Norway)
lookin GREAT!
Best webshop for house djs just got better ;)
Best webshop for house djs just got better ;)
发表时间 Wed 23 Aug 06 @ 7:05 pm