How Many Actually Like Lionel's New Website Design?

They should have kept a "Classic" Format for us "Old School Guys".  I'm having issues with the new site as well.

Chief Bob (Retired)

Unfortunately, Lionel did nothing to improve the accuracy of the shipping schedule.  So now you just get to see the mis-information quicker!  

It's been almost a month since the new website launched, and the shipping schedule (updated today, 9/21) still lists a bunch of those 18" aluminum passenger cars that were canceled (i.e., the sets of 6 that were originally catalog'd as three 2-packs for each livery).  They gotta get it right sooner or later... But probably will be later.   

David

Ding... Ding... Ding... Ding... Ding...   Give this man a prize!  

Lionel's rookie developers effectively worked in an ivory tower vacuum on this project.  

After revamping the website, they effectively cut off a former and highly efficient way to search for Lionel products quickly... i.e., Google.  Yes, Google's crawler technology made it super easy for us to use "Lionel XXXXX" (where XXXXX is the Lionel part number) as the search target... And you'd get there quicker than on the Lionel site itself.  Pretty cool accomplishment.

But now, Google searches are currently returning dead links to the former website, so we get the silly "We think you're headed in the wrong direction" error message.  The only wrong direction I'm aware of is Lionel's decision to rewrite the website in the way that they did.

Graphics:  A+

Everything else: F, an abysmal failure.

David

What I really miss is the advanced search function so I could look up say, UP, steam, O scale, legacy and see all of the products from 1999 till now.  I have not been able to do this very easily in the new system.  I have also had issues with glitches in paging through searches.  I dropped a note to Lionel to see if they could add back this functionality.  Especially with York coming up I miss this functionality to put together my wish list. LOL.

NOT me.   I can't seem to navigate anywhere I want to go on it.

Wow, I totally relate to this statement.  It was so easy to research a specific road name or style of car, ie, PFE Reefer.  I really miss that feature.  

I also miss the old catalogs.

The 'improvement' leaves a lot to be desired...

I don't care for the new website at all. Rich

Difficult to navigate.  I found it so frustrating that I just don't go to it now.

I find the parts & service info being split off as a seperate URL frustrating. There's no easy way to navigate back and forth between it and the main page unless you open seperate browsers or tabs. On the old site everything was accessable from the main menu bar.

I thought I was the only one.

I thought maybe I just couldn't find it. Why did they do that?

quote:

But now, Google searches are currently returning dead links to the former website, so we get the silly "We think you're headed in the wrong direction" error message.  The only wrong direction I'm aware of is Lionel's decision to rewrite the website in the way that they did.

What were they supposed to do.... stay frozen in time forever so Google searches continue to work?
Its not unusual at all for Google to return results for dead pages or even dead sites. Happens all the time.
I think the idea of their web site changes was to attract new customers.

They know the faithful will cope.

I have Lionel support bookmarked. If there are changes there, they don't jump out at me.

The new Lionel main site doesn't do anything for me. But it seems to be in keeping with what other web sites are doing. I could do without the animations.

Not a fan!

Bob

Well I think it's more that the changes have made it more difficult to find the data and it's taking longer to come up to speed with the new site.

For example, Windows 10 is a somewhat major change from say Windows 7 or even 8, but I found it quick and easy to understand how to use the new OS and lacked for nothing that I had access to before.

I did not find this with Lionel's new site.

CW,

I'll let you in on a little secret... there's this little concept called "backwards compatibility" that the really good IT developers often choose to employ.  Are they required to?  Of course not.  But if they do, it makes life much easier for users.  Might be a bit more work on the developers' end to pull it off.  But given how poorly the new website works anyway, there isn't much else -- aside from pretty graphics -- that mitigate the fact that Lionel effectively pulled the plug on its "legacy" site... No pun intended.  

David

I will say to build on Gary's post, that I find the new website is much easier to navigate on my iPhone and iPad than the old version. 

When viewing on a mobile device its more compact than when viewing on a computer. It does seem they were looking to design more toward mobile viewing.

They do need to fix a lot of broken links when you search for a product via Google but that's another matter and may catch up as Google's algorithms catch up with the site overhaul.

quote:

I'll let you in on a little secret... there's this little concept called "backwards compatibility" that the really good IT developers often choose to employ.

Thanks for the IT lesson.

Maintaining the old web pages cost money.
And there is not too much worse than having customers using out of date web pages.

I guess I missed all the complaints about dead links. Yours was the only one I saw.

Hhhmmm... I found the new site works poorly on my iPad.  Downright awful, in fact.  Too many things got lost behind multiple clicks.  My best experience with the new site was actually when visiting lionel.com on my desktop computer w/30" Apple monitor. 

Can't speak for the iPhone, 'cause I still have an iPhone 4.  And the display is too small to really view websites effectively unless there's no other choice.

David 

Well, given the fact that Lionel reportedly dropped about 10 years of product info when migrating to the new site, I'd say those "old" product-finder pages were serving more as an archive rather than as "out of date" information.

I guess the only thing worse than viewing those older product pages is if your customer base doesn't visit the site at all.  

David

David, to be fair I didn't say it was exceptional judged independently  Just better than the previous iteration when on a mobile platform. The old design it was too easy to mis-touch on a mobile device due to small link areas from the drop down menus. 

I can live with stuff getting buried under navigation menus (the back button on top is a little clunky for navigation), especially as I can retouch the top level menu button (three lines on mobile) to restart my journey. I do like being able to pinch the image of the product to view it larger without changing other website size info on my iPhone 6.

While it certainly meets the "new" website design norm (which I do like - most of the time), it may not be in line with many in the model railroading demographic.

Without getting *too* political, dare I say, the website is a perfect example of what makes Lionel's job hard: Try to entice a younger crowd while keeping hobby regulars happy. Maybe the Lionel Support page maintaining the old format is the olive branch, I'm not sure.

And while I'm a younger guy as far as this hobby's concerned (33), I respect and value the opinions of those older than myself and I'm hopefully things become better for us all as time progresses.

Interesting example Chuck, some non train friends were at the old site looking for kid's gift ideas a year ago. Sent them there now as a test. They equate the new Lionel site to Windows Vista/Windows XP and Windows 7/Windows 8. New, not improved in anyway. They said having to get used to change doesn't mean it is better. I gave them the task of finding an older kid's item which our local store still has. "Not possible"

Google search for Lionel items almost always turns up a dead end page now.

The Angela Trotta Thomas site follows the same design but somehow is just much better

Steve, I've looked at the iPhone6 and iPhone6 Plus a couple of times at the local Verizon Wireless store, and I really like the larger display screen for web-browsing.  Just not sure how I'd adapt to that size phone -- especially the iPhone6 Plus -- not fitting into most of my shirt pockets. 

It is tempting though. 

David

I'm on the site now; here's a screenshot... I used the search function to find this item, which worked well enough, and now I'm here at what I assume is the product page.  I've clicked every active link on the screen in an attempt to get information about this set. Where's the product info?  What's the curve radius?  What are its features?

I'm on Chrome, but a test with IE yields the same results.

ams,

   That looks to be an anomaly.     I got the same result on Firefox, IE, and Safari.

The data should be on the right side under the "price--find a dealer" buttons.

I looked through some other sets on the Lionchief sets page as well as other product pages and  they all had the usual data including minimum curves.

I just fired off a note to Lionel to let them know.

Ah, it would have been wise for me to check a few other listings before my post--as this happens to be my only train purchase this year, I went looking to see MSRP vs. my preorder at CharlesRo.  Initially I thought perhaps my AdBlock extension was affecting it somehow.

Layout and web design aside, the thing I hoped we'd see in a new site was an archive of all historical Lionel catalogs for viewing & download... like "View Catalogs From 115 Years of Lionel History"  Nothing fancy, PDFs would suffice--they wouldn't need to be indexed/searchable.  I know they're out there because there used to be someone selling them on eBay.  A rich historical record of 115 years of manufacturing trains preserved online would be quite impressive... feels like a missed opportunity.  Code for a simple archive of non-dynamic files is about the simplest thing out there.

Forgetaboutit, and the cover looks like it's made for a cell phone scanner.

Jack

My biggest complaint is that all the product URLs have changed.  In my inventory one of the fields I saved was the product URL.  When MTH redesigned their site the URLs still worked.  They don't for the new Lionel site.  A HUGE oversight as ANYBODY who bookmarked ANYTHING is now SOL.

I hate it.....you always get a yahoo who thinks he has a better idea.

I don't like it very confusing and cumbersome.

Someone sold a better idea to Lionel! The website is $#+@!.

Awful!!!!

Where is the "product finder?" (Or, whatever it was called)

The feature that allowed me to see all the items of a particular scale-type-roadname that Lionel produced over the years. (such as ... all the scale NS diesel locomotives)

Thanks 

I agree with that. I had the same thing as you did, database with links to products. Now all links in my database are broken for all Lionel products and need to be redone. And also as you stated, MTH got it right on their new website. All my links still work and the whole MTH website is much more intuitive, at least to me it is.

The upper right hand corner of the main page has a search bar, it's the magnifying glass looking thing up there. I have only tried it once with an exact product number, so I don't know if you will get the same results as the old system when doing a broader search as you mentioned?

I had to ask about this the other day and cjack pointed it out to me. Otherwise I would still be searching for it as well. I don't find the new design very user friendly or intuitive, but I suppose I'll adjust sooner or later.

I don't like it...for the money they could have gotten a lot more accomplished that would be useable by all and readily understood. Lost ground on this one.

I don't like it.

Total Failure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

no

Use to visit regularly , not now.

And trying to search for a old Lionel train is completely messed up.

Very disappointing to me anyway.

But, what the heck. I'm just a old guy that don't like drastic changes anyway

Larry

I am usually very good around computers and computer programs. The Lionel web site is not the easiest to get around in.

It must have cost them some big bucks but like I told them in my e mail about the new web page. Most collectors and operators are getting up in age and your new web page is not very user friendly at all. 

I wish you would have left well enough alone!