[Sigia-l] comparison research and examples of such tools

[Karl Groves]

I can't recall seeing any research on the number of items to compare.
What I have seen are recommendations about the quality of the comparison.
NNGroup's "E-Commerce User Experience" has a section on search results and product comparison.
pg. 147 - "Provide a way to compare the details of similar items", goes on to mention that one-to-one comparisons are useless if the details compared aren't relevant or significant.
pg 148 - "Let customers choose the products to be compared", and uses an example of Sears.com which first lists all items returned via search and then allows the user to compare the results that are displayed.
Additionally, it makes mention of the fact that like items should be compared via like criteria.

I think available screen real estate would be more of a limiting factor to the number of products that can be compared, than information overload...

-Karl



> -----Original Message-----
> From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org 
> [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On Behalf Of
> Lisa Agustin
> Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 11:42 AM
> To: sigia-l at asis.org
> Subject: [Sigia-l] comparison research and examples of such tools
> 
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> Does anyone know of any existing usability research in the area of
> side-by-side product comparisons (online or otherwise)?  For 
> example, has
> there been any research done in terms of the maximum number 
> of items that
> can be compared side by side before the user becomes 
> overwhelmed with the
> available options?  Also, are there any examples of online 
> comparison tools
> that you think work particularly well? Thanks in advance--
> 
> Lisa
> ========================
> Lisa Agustin
> Sr. Information Architect
> Dynamic Diagrams
> 146 Clifford St.
> Providence, RI  02903
> 
> ph. 401.223.1233 x105
> fax 401.223.1234
> e.  lisa at dynamicdiagrams.com
> http://www.dynamicdiagrams.com
> 
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