07 February, 2018
  • ArtWanted.com Staff
  • 5,088 Views
  • 40 Comments

New Members Area Control Panel

We are very excited to announce the brand new ArtWanted Members Control Panel! This major update has been in the making for a very long time and is now available for all members to manage their portfolio going forward.

The Members Area has been completely redesigned to match the look and feel of the ArtWanted public website and we are now calling it the member “Control Panel”. The new Control Panel is faster loading, easier to use and adds several new features over the previous version. Here are the details…

Control Panel Upgrades

    New Design – Every page in the Members Area was rebuilt from scratch to match the look and feel of the public facing ArtWanted.com website. The layout, colors, fonts & style is now consistent between the public website and the private members site.

    Mobile Friendly – The new Control Panel is designed to look amazing on mobile phones and tablet computers. You can now manage your portfolio and view your statistics on the go from anywhere - and it works great.

    Dashboard – The new Control Panel Dashboard allows you to get a quick snapshot of your ArtWanted account and activity within just a few seconds. Click on any dashboard number to be taken to the supporting page with more details.

    Simple Uploads – The main use of the Control Panel is to upload new portfolio images and we have made this even easier. You can now simply drag your images onto the page, and they will post to your portfolio without filling out any forms. All image information can be added after the upload.

    Portfolio Power Score – We have created a new system to show the “Power” your portfolio has to attract visitors and buyers. Each member has an individual Portfolio Power score and a corresponding report to show you what you can do to improve your ArtWanted portfolio.

    Improved Stats Reports – Our new statistics area has better looking charts and graphs for you to see the visitors to your online portfolio. We even have an individual report for each image in your portfolio that gives you additional details about that image.

    Liked Images Report – We recently introduced the “Like” feature for any image on ArtWanted. You can now view a report that shows all of the images you have “liked” in the past, so you can go back and visit them again. We also display how many “likes” each of your images has received.

    Minor Upgrades Everywhere – As we said above, every page in the Control Panel has been built from scratch to make it better than before. You will find dozens of minor features, layout improvements and simplification everywhere you look.

Rollout Plan

    We know that change is sometimes hard (even when it’s better) so we have created a roll-out plan to have everyone get used to the new changes. This will also give us time to fix any issues that are reported by our users.

    February – The Old Members Area will still be the default, but members can explore and use the New Control Panel at anytime.

    March – The new Control Panel will be made the default, but members can still go back to the old Members Area if desired.

    April – We will shut off the old Members Area and everyone will be using the new Control Panel.

We Want Your Feedback

    We want to hear from you about the new Control Panel. Tell us what you like, what you don’t like, and what you would like to see added. This feedback will help us improve the new Control Panel for everyone. Please reply to this message thread with your feedback, or submit it privately through a support ticket.

Go Explore!

The new Control Panel can be viewed at the following link:

www.ArtWanted.com/cp

Reply

40 Comments

Joanie Holliday 07 Feb 2018

Looked it over. Would rather keep the old one. Easier to find what I want, much more pleasing to the eye with its color icons. I'll continue to use our old one until Forced to use the new but not improved to me.


ArtWanted.com Staff 07 Feb 2018

Joanie – Thanks for your feedback and browsing through the new Control Panel.

We understand that the transition to the new Control Panel will be even more painful for power users like you, who spend a large amount of time on ArtWanted every day. The old ArtWanted Members Area has been the same for 10+ years, so even a minor change would be hard to get used to, but even more so when we do a major change like this one.

When we first redesigned the ArtWanted.com public website in 2016, we had a bunch of people that were not happy with the changes as well. However, as people used the new website, most of the same people that were originally unhappy became happy with the changes. Website changes just take time to get used to and embrace. We think you will come to enjoy the changes in the near future.

You mentioned that you really like the large colorful icons in the old Members Area, great! We have also had a bunch of members in the past say that they don’t like them, too. No one is right or wrong, it’s just different opinions. We know we can’t make everyone happy, but it’s our hope that our changes will at least make the majority of our members happy.

Instead of avoiding the new Control Panel for a few months, we invite you (and everyone) to spend time exploring and using the new Control Panel. The more you use it, the more familiar it will become to you and we expect that you will even start to like the changes. If you have specific things that you really don’t like or can’t find, please send us a support ticket, so we can review your feedback and determine what changes can be made.

You are a very active member of ArtWanted, so your feedback is valuable, please keep it coming. Thanks!

Carlos Camus 08 Feb 2018

FELICITACIONES

Logre un premio con las pinturas que se exhiben.

Es excelente vuestra oferta bouncesite

http://bouncesite.com/camusart

[email protected]

Rex Woodmore 08 Feb 2018

Greetings from Western Australia! I like what I see so far. Clean & bright. Looking forward to seeing it in full swing. Thanks for providing such a good service. Regards Rex

Stefani Wehner 09 Feb 2018

I agree with Rex, I like the Panel, clearly arranged and will try and explore it as soon as possible. Thanks for all your new ideas and service during the last months. Kind Regards Stefani

Ginger Olansen 09 Feb 2018

I also like the control panel and it gives so much information. Now to check out on the mobile! A lot of us don't like any change and find it difficult to do. I on the other hand, I love change and more info. Great job! Thanks. I didn't know I wanted it but I do!! LOL!


ArtWanted.com Staff 09 Feb 2018

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone, we are glad to hear you are happy with the new Control Panel. We have many more features and changes we are planning to add over the next few months, so keep the feedback coming. Your feedback and suggestions are always reviewed and always plan into what we do to the site.

DEE JOBES PHOTOGRAPHY 09 Feb 2018

GREAT JOB ON THE NEW MEMBERS CONTROL PANEL!!!GREAT LAYOUT AND DESIGN!!!USER FRIENDLY!!! THANKS,SO MUCH AW STAFF AND MANAGEMENT!!!WISHING YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES A BEAUTIFUL DAY!!! SINCERELY, MRS DEE JOBES DEE JOBES PHOTOGRAPHY

Rick Corbett 09 Feb 2018

I love the new Control Panel Upgrade. It's a real nice addition. Thank you Artwanted staff for all you do to make Artwanted even better. You rock!!!!

Paul Weiner 11 Feb 2018

I enjoyed exploring the new design appearance and gives a refreshing look to the website. Thanks for your hard work.

Susi Franco 11 Feb 2018

Hi there~ the control panel ,at least ostensibly, looks fine to me; I just upgraded to doing POD via ArtWanted but this is hardly my first rodeo. I have a concern I don't see mentioned on your community boards, and that is, viewers are free to share the work, which encourages/facilitates image theft. My work as a professional arrtist has established value, as demonstrated through my web presence on various major e-retailer sellers of POD Art. I don't like the "sharing" button ( for social media esp) and STRONGLY suggest giving your paying members the option to disable it. So far I haven't found that option, so if I'm missing it, please do advise where I can find it. Also, portfolio images should be much smaller (upload size, ex: 72 dpi) than the POD images, which should be catalogued in the back end where viewers cannot access them, where only your printers can access them. Additionally, the "share" option benefits ArtWanted far more than it does the artists whose work is being ferried across the internet. You are far more likely to get more artists signing up & paying for memberships than we are to get sales; in fact, in my considered professional experience, sharing images on social media is a sales killer. I don't WANT my work shared on Pinterest unless I put it on my own page there.

While the copyright superimpose certainly has some value as a deterrent, any person with PhotoShop skills can erase that symbol & fill in using the colors of the work, so it's not a tremendous protection but better than nothing. Image Theft takes a serious bite out of professional Artist's hard-earned royalties in the form of sales that don't happen because people can get the image for free just by screenshot or dragging & dropping. ( I urge artists to test that by either dragging & dropping from your portfolio here or by doing a screenshot of the work & printing it. You won't get a big print, but you'll get a frameable print). It often feels that while POD websites are eager to earn the revenue stream from artists paying for premium memberships, that's the primary concern, that premium membership revenue and not the risk of image theft all your member artists incur.

I'd like to know what ArtWanted is doing about Image Theft. Your "sharing" button is lethal to sales despite the boilerplate argument that "sharing" gives more of the ubiquitous "exposure". Exposure has zero value if it brings along with it the loss of royalty revenue through image theft.

I took the time to write this serious question and am hoping for a considered response. I like your site and am interested to see how I do in terms of sales here, so I'm hoping you can be proactive and consider your members' portfolio value as having the same weight as your premium membership income stream. Thank you for your consideration. Respectfully, Susi Franco

Eileen Hale 11 Feb 2018

I share Susi Franco's concern about letting viewers share our images, without getting a choice as to whether we want to allow this. I look forward to hearing whether there is a way to disable sharing, and if not, I hope you will add that option.

Eileen Hale 11 Feb 2018

In addition to sharing Susi Franco's concern (I thought that my comment above would show as a reply to her comment), I would really like to see the visual "container" of the boxed-in areas kept, as it is/was in the old Control Panel. I am okay with the new icons, but without the contained areas I find it more difficult to focus.

One of the functions of a web page, in my view, is to provide clear organization. The old version feels much more clearly organized and focused to me, and that makes it function better.

Ranefox 12 Feb 2018

@Eileen, I feel the same way, however, I think that being able to reply directly to the person you want to reply, may bog down the system by overloading the person's replies, which could turn into a huge back-and-forth 'tea party'...grin. By default reply to entire thread, it eases the load. (Hope that makes sense).

Along the same lines, though, I would like to be able to view the post to which I'm replying. By default, I can see the last post that I'm replying to, but now I cannot see Susi Franco's post, as I have some things I want to comment/add.

ART STAFF - Is it possible to make the reply box a pop-up that floats on top of the thread we want to reply to? That way, we can scroll up or down, so we can view the post.

Thanks...


ArtWanted.com Staff 12 Feb 2018

Susi – Thanks for your feedback and questions. Let us comment on your concerns/questions.

SOCIAL SHARING – Yes, we have always had a setting to turn off the sharing buttons on your portfolio if you do not want to allow this. This is found in the SETTINGS…SOCIAL MEDIA page. Here is the direct link for you to hide the share buttons: http://www.artwanted.com/cp/settings/socialmedia.cfm

IMAGE RESOLUTION – All images that are uploaded ArtWanted, are resized to a 72 DPI web quality image for display. We do not share or display the high-resolution files used in the POD program. Those files are only used when orders are made.

IMAGE THEFT – ArtWanted has more options to prevent image theft that other art websites we have seen. We allow members to add a watermark, have a no-right click script, display web quality images only and other features. However, these things can all be worked around and would not stop a determined art thief. The fact is, that any art on the Internet (on any website or app) can be downloaded, printed, shared, screen shotted and other ways of getting that art. It’s the nature of the Internet and there isn’t a website out there that can stop that. Artists need to understand that any image on the internet can and will be downloaded, so it’s a decision each artist need to make if they want to share their art online. ArtWanted does what we can to reduce the risk, but no system is full-proof.


ArtWanted.com Staff 12 Feb 2018

Ranefox - Thanks for your suggestions for changes to the message board. We invite you to share them on the IDEAS section of our site, so we can see what others think about these ideas by their votes. Thanks.


ArtWanted.com Staff 16 Feb 2018

If you haven't already, we invite you to check out the new Control Panel and post your feedback here on this thread. We want to hear what you like and don't like, so it can continue to improve. Minor improvements are happening each week to the Control Panel, as it's being finalized.

Sigridur Bachmann 18 Feb 2018

I like the new Control Panel,but I upload my first photo DSC _ 0095. jpg.... I title the photo " Winter Sunset " and it didn´t appears....just the number from my camera. Can I fix it some how ?


ArtWanted.com Staff 19 Feb 2018

SIGRIDUR - By default, the title of the artwork you upload will be the file name, which saves a step in adding the title before upload. However, you can always edit the title at anytime. After you upload the artwork, you will be taken to the page to edit the image, so just change the title there.

You can also do this by going to the MANAGE PORTFOLIO section, and clicking on the EDIT button next to the image you want to edit.

Ginger Olansen 19 Feb 2018

The "new upload manager" was soooo fast and neater! Big improvement. There is one thing that confused me while entering new photos: my photos I display as a traditional art gallery, yet every picture I add gives me the option to change that for each photo. Is that an error? Just did not make sense to me? Thanks for the nice work though except for that one item.

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