[Sigia-l] A different kind of shopping experience

[Paola Kathuria]

Ziya Oz wrote:
> would I consider color and geography as valid layers of UI abstraction and
> points of departure for shopping workflow?
>
> Color: <http://www.etsy.com/color.php>
> Geography: <http://www.etsy.com/geolocator.php>

I've not seen the geography picker (the site tells me to update
Flash) but I remember the colour picker very well. It falls into
the category of:

 Just Because You Can (Do It), Doesn't Mean You Should

It's not that useful when searching by colour (relevant for the
types of products sold), as I recall, because you don't get to
see the swatches until you hover over a location.

They also had (have?) 3D spiral of thumbnails ("Time Machine")
which I explored for a minute but could never imagine using.

The original 'about page' says "There are lots of new ideas
and technologies opening up new ways to shop online. The big
corporate sites like eBay and Amazon seem to be content with
a text-only advanced search. We're here to show the range of
possibilities, and just what's possible."

  http://web.archive.org/web/20051023011148/www.etsy.com/about.php

Etsy's for people who make/buy hand-made crafts. It's been
built by four dudes who have built a nice-looking site but
who went a bit mad with the gimmicks.

However, and I noticed this from the start, it's the gimmicks
which get the media attention; as it's the flashy things that
people notice when reviewing the site (rather than use when
actually trying to buy or sell something) and which gets
mentioned in the press/reviews:

  http://blog.etsy.com/?page_id=44


Paola
--
http://www.paolability.com/