I'm new to D&D Beyond. You've got some really great tools! However, I'm finding some user experience issues while exploring the website on a desktop browser. If you're open to feedback, I can document more of the user experience bugs I run into. If you're not open to feedback, let me know and I'll stop bothering you. :)
The TLDR; is: It would be helpful if the source book list (under Top menu -> "Sources" -> Sourcebooks -> "View all") could have a star next to titles I own, or maybe a "purchased" banner above the book title. Something to indicate that I can actually read a source book that I've purchased.
Details
I got excited and bought a bunch of source books on D&D Beyond. When I have my paper copies of the books, they're all in a pile, and I can visually look at the titles and say, "Oh, I should read more of my new copy of Volo's Guide to Monsters," or "I bet Tasha's Guide to Everything would have interesting rules for magic corruption effects." Then I pick it up and read the book.
There's no easy way to replicate that experience with the D&D Beyond desktop website. Here's what I've tried:
1. I can see the list of titles I purchased under User icon -> Account -> Marketplace -> "Current Product Licenses". However, that list doesn't link to the source books to read them. It's just a plain text list of titles.
2. I've noticed in the website that if you can't read a copy of a book, it links you to the market place to buy it. So I wondered if the marketplace would have links to read the titles I've purchased. I went to Top menu -> Marketplace -> Store -> Source books.
I got very confused because titles I thought I bought were there were missing from the market place?? It turns out the market place silently hides titles I've already purchased. It was distressing because I was convinced I was forgetting the titles of books. It would be less confusing if purchased titles were listed with a greyed-out "Purchased" button instead of an "Add to cart" button. Ideally the "Purchased" button would take me to read the source book.
3. Finally I clicked on Top menu -> "Sources" -> Sourcebooks -> "View all". Then I could view all source books and click the title link to read them. (That's when I realized I had remembered the source book titles correctly when I was looking in the marketplace, and I figured out the market place was hiding purchased books). Okay, so this was the list that I was searching for. It took me a while to find it because the word "Sources" didn't give me a hint that it was "Source books". I thought was "Resources" aka tools like the character creator, or maybe documentation.
Top menu -> "Sources" -> Sourcebooks -> "View all" gave me a list of source books, with links to read the contents of the source books. That's closer to what I wanted.
The problem is there's no indication that I've purchased a source book. The titles look exactly the same for both purchased and unpurchased books. I have to click on each one to see whether I own it. If I own it, I can read it. If I don't own it, it tells me to purchase it in the marketplace. I don't want to guess which titles I own and have to click through the whole list.
I could have the full source book list open in one tab and my list of current product licenses in another tab. But my list of product licenses aren't in order by title, they're in order by purchase date (maybe purchase code??). So that's not terribly helpful either as my source book list grows.
I tried downloading the Android D&D Beyond app, but it crashed every time I tried to open a source book. The character builder Android app is stable though.
It would be helpful if the source book list (under Top menu -> "Sources" -> Sourcebooks -> "View all") could have a star next to titles I own, or maybe a "purchased" banner above the book title. Something to indicate that I can actually read that source book.
Thank you for creating this cool site! It's got a lot of good features, and it just needs some user experience and documentation to really shine for new users.
Public Mod Note
(GPyromania):
Moved from Bugs & Support to Homebrew & House Rules.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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I'm new to D&D Beyond. You've got some really great tools! However, I'm finding some user experience issues while exploring the website on a desktop browser. If you're open to feedback, I can document more of the user experience bugs I run into. If you're not open to feedback, let me know and I'll stop bothering you. :)
The TLDR; is: It would be helpful if the source book list (under Top menu -> "Sources" -> Sourcebooks -> "View all") could have a star next to titles I own, or maybe a "purchased" banner above the book title. Something to indicate that I can actually read a source book that I've purchased.
Details
I got excited and bought a bunch of source books on D&D Beyond. When I have my paper copies of the books, they're all in a pile, and I can visually look at the titles and say, "Oh, I should read more of my new copy of Volo's Guide to Monsters," or "I bet Tasha's Guide to Everything would have interesting rules for magic corruption effects." Then I pick it up and read the book.
There's no easy way to replicate that experience with the D&D Beyond desktop website. Here's what I've tried:
1. I can see the list of titles I purchased under User icon -> Account -> Marketplace -> "Current Product Licenses". However, that list doesn't link to the source books to read them. It's just a plain text list of titles.
2. I've noticed in the website that if you can't read a copy of a book, it links you to the market place to buy it. So I wondered if the marketplace would have links to read the titles I've purchased. I went to Top menu -> Marketplace -> Store -> Source books.
I got very confused because titles I thought I bought were there were missing from the market place?? It turns out the market place silently hides titles I've already purchased. It was distressing because I was convinced I was forgetting the titles of books. It would be less confusing if purchased titles were listed with a greyed-out "Purchased" button instead of an "Add to cart" button. Ideally the "Purchased" button would take me to read the source book.
3. Finally I clicked on Top menu -> "Sources" -> Sourcebooks -> "View all". Then I could view all source books and click the title link to read them. (That's when I realized I had remembered the source book titles correctly when I was looking in the marketplace, and I figured out the market place was hiding purchased books). Okay, so this was the list that I was searching for. It took me a while to find it because the word "Sources" didn't give me a hint that it was "Source books". I thought was "Resources" aka tools like the character creator, or maybe documentation.
Top menu -> "Sources" -> Sourcebooks -> "View all" gave me a list of source books, with links to read the contents of the source books. That's closer to what I wanted.
The problem is there's no indication that I've purchased a source book. The titles look exactly the same for both purchased and unpurchased books. I have to click on each one to see whether I own it. If I own it, I can read it. If I don't own it, it tells me to purchase it in the marketplace. I don't want to guess which titles I own and have to click through the whole list.
I could have the full source book list open in one tab and my list of current product licenses in another tab. But my list of product licenses aren't in order by title, they're in order by purchase date (maybe purchase code??). So that's not terribly helpful either as my source book list grows.
I tried downloading the Android D&D Beyond app, but it crashed every time I tried to open a source book. The character builder Android app is stable though.
It would be helpful if the source book list (under Top menu -> "Sources" -> Sourcebooks -> "View all") could have a star next to titles I own, or maybe a "purchased" banner above the book title. Something to indicate that I can actually read that source book.
Thank you for creating this cool site! It's got a lot of good features, and it just needs some user experience and documentation to really shine for new users.