When they started this I figured there would be the normal bad things that occur as a company begins to grow. However, it appears to me that they are not really customer-focused. IF they were then the new store (for example) would have been vetted more, with a lot more options. Instead they went from a partner with a print lab to having no printing capability to having essentially one print product. That seems really backwards.

Too bad they don’t have a dislike button on their new interface.

My dear friend and partner, Gene Lowinger, has had his account banned by the administration of 500px. If you wish to stay in touch, you can email him through his website at http://www.genelowinger.com. Please check his blog at genelowinger.blogspot.com where you can subscribe to an RSS feed and share his posts on Facebook and twitter (I’m working on G+). He is looking at 72dpi.com as alternative.

Great customer service eh? NOT

Thanks for taking the time to respond, damage control or not. I’m glad to hear the friends view is returning, and the information on print size and payments is good to know. However, the issues I brought up haven’t been addressed. If the site had been properly tested and user tested before release, a large number of these issues would have been obvious and wouldn’t have angered a paying userbase. Honestly, it seems like there was very little, if any, testing done. With as much traffic that 500px.com receives, you’d think testing would be a crucial part of a new release.

• Why does the user profile URL display other user’s photos? This seems like a pretty mindless decision. The “Flow” view should be considered as an “activity” type of page, not a landing page for a user URL. This brings home my point that the focus/goal of the site seems to have shifted from the photographer and their work to meaningless social interaction. “Flow” should be pushed to a secondary link from the user URL. Most people browse to user profiles to see their photographic work, not their pointless social activity. Having “Flow” as the default view dilutes the purpose (photography) of the 500px website. Summary: Facebook is Facebook, let 500px be 500px – not Facebook.
• Support for mobile devices is severely lacking. A responsive design for mobile devices should have been a higher priority than implementing the “Flow” feature. Any decent UX developer knows that you have to get the simple things right before the flashy. The top-right navigation dropdown fails on the iPad and iPhone – it’s frustrating to use as mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad do not have a “hover” state.
  • Lower resolution desktop screens or smaller browser windows don’t handle the width of the navigation bar well, either.
• The “organizer” page doesn’t even slightly resemble what you’d expect from the icon, which looks more to be an “upload” glyph. User testing would have revealed that this wasn’t a wise choice, especially given that the rest of the navigation bar is text, not icons.
• The uploader is currently stripping EXIF data from uploaded images. This is a really stupid regression to have, given that the previous uploader worked wonderfully.
• The market is a great idea but falls very short. Why can’t photographers set their own prices? Was this just overlooked? $500 seems very steep for a canvas print, for most people.

These issues aside, I think the reason why your users are so visibly upset is because none of this really seemed to be communicated well. Bugs happen with new roll outs – and not all of them are caught in testing. In order to catch bugs however, you actually have to test to begin with. Implementing drastic changes that introduce enormous bugs and shift away from expected behavior is not something to be taken lightly. A/B testing, user testing, and beta testing are absolutely crucial pieces to delivering a product in a way that doesn’t anger your userbase, paid or not.

Relying on feedscreamback from users to determine what should actually be done on a website is a sure fire way to lose respect and damage the reputation that you’ve worked so hard to build. Rather than insulting your users with this kind of process, admit your mistakes and move forward. Having glanced at the support site, seeing users get told corporate non-speak like this is incredibly disappointing.

“Changes might take some getting used to, but we hope you will give it a chance and maybe once you learn everything you will get to like it.”

And this just looks like a desperate attempt to keep paying users from canceling accounts or asking for refunds:

“What other features are coming back? It is a secret for now.”

I’ll be waiting to see what gets fixed, as my “awesome” expires a year from now. Unfortunately, I have no plans to extend it further should this type of mismanagement continue.

I work at 500px and I just wanted to let you, and your readers, know that we are working on a few fixes over here that will make UX better. For example, in response to our users, the Friends photo view is going to be returning.

Also, regarding Market, the digital download is at a resolution for viewing on a monitor only. You couldn’t achieve large, quality prints from it. You can find information on what the photographer makes from each purchase on the Store page. Here’s a link for you though: http://500px.com/terms/fee_schedule.pdf

Hope that helps. And I hope you’ll check back to see the changes that we’re working on.

Thank you,

Debbie

Perhaps they got scared for the Flickr revamp next week and rushed half-thought out changes into service.

Their customer service is also complete crap. They are responding to user complaints with complete corporate non-speak, which enrages me as a paid user even more.