[Sigia-l] Online Product Selectors

[Stew Dean]

Hi Mitchell,

I've worked on quite a few product based web sites for some fairly large 
companies. In terms of product selection the trick is to provide a very 
easy way to browser products and to navigate through product 
information.   Product pages should be consistent and should be common all 
the way through the site.

A good example of this is motorola's approach to 'modules' for products, 
see (hellomoto.co.uk). Bad approaches include Microsoft and HP sites (I can 
say that as I've worked on both of them in the UK). Large companies often 
have a fragmented approach to their product information with duplication 
information appearing in solution and support sections when they should all 
be tied into each other. A solution section should be a view on the list of 
products available but ultimately link through to the same product pages.

On example of product selection I worked on was for a printer company 
called Oki across Europe (www.oki.co.uk). The hierarchy of products is 
relatively simple and the product page allows you to see everything at one 
go. Drop down menus allow people who know what they are after to quickly 
jump to it and those who are not sure can drill down with extra information 
being provided to them as they go through.

As with any product site there are also 'hero' sections and features which 
relate back to products.  The solutions section, I should add, was added 
after my time, it's not exactly added that well.  The site is not perfect, 
I would love to have done a version 2.

So, to put it simply, a fairly commonly used solution to product selection 
is lists! Different lists with different amounts of detail. Now the 
approach is dependent on what your product is.  I like the Mercadies-Benz 
example.with visual representation but it still doesn't allow you to 
compare more than a few things at once.

Just my tuppence. The key is to ensure the comparison is integrated with 
the product information architecture. Too many companies add on 
functionality without integrating it.

Stewart Dean
User Experience Contractor. London.