6 ms·

I think the fact that out of stock items aren't shown isn't a UX improvement. If an item isn't in stock and you can't see that it is normally stocked then you w

I think the fact that out of stock items aren't shown isn't a UX improvement. If an item isn't in stock and you can't see that it is normally stocked then you will probably shift your business elsewhere and not come back. But even that wasn't the root cause of the issue here, the root cause was not making the user aware of the following logical fallacy: "if a single part exists for the vehicle only 1 part is shown" is not the same as "if 1 part is shown there only exists a single part for the vehicle".

loopz 6y ago
Root cause is complexity and inconsistency, though could be unintentional as well.
eitland 6y ago
> I think the fact that out of stock items aren't shown isn't a UX improvement. I see your point but I'd say it can be for certain items. A stupid example: if I was shopping for air fresheners (I'm not;-) I'd rather not see my search results in the webshop polluted by every discontinued version of Wunderbaum they ever had in stock.
- barbegal 6y ago
  Yes it is still advantageous to demote out of stock items in the search results. But if the store knows a certain Wunderbaum flavor is really popular but not in stock right now it should probably show up fairly highly in the search results. And there is a difference between being temporarily out of stock and discontinued.
- eps 6y ago
  Just order them by availability. In stock first, out of stock second.
  - Semaphor 6y ago
    and if you don't make that clear, I scroll through a bunch of useless results. I can't remember a single time when I wanted out of stock items shown by default.
  - pure-awesome 6y ago
    In addition to this, mark them clearly as out-of-stock - fade out the preview image and prepend [out of stock] to the item description.
  - OJFord 6y ago
    Ideally make it a choice - I don't like it when I order by price and it's overriden to (availability, price) - maybe it's out of stock because the price is that good, and I'm willing to wait.
- polytely 6y ago
  Some shops also have an expected delivery delay indicator in addition of their out-of-stock indicator, so if I want to buy a Moog Subharmonicon it will say _out of stock: order now and receive it in about 5 weeks._ Which is a really nice piece of UX in my opinion. [0]: https://www.bax-shop.nl/synthesizer?o=product_cdate https://www.bax-shop.nl/synthesizer?o=product_cdate
- lucideer 6y ago
  > I see your point but [...] I'd rather not see my search results in the webshop polluted There's three issues with this: 1. In UX, hiding things is a lazy solution to not being able to effectively differentiate items by relevance. There isn't an easy one-size-fits-all answer to doing the latter, which is why you need good, experienced UX people. Hiding things is what the inexperienced/lazy/bad ones do instead. 2. "Polluted" is also a codeword for "not of the clean, white, zero-inbox aesthetic I desire", and in certain situations this excuse is overused to enormously degrade UX in favour of a contrived sense of visual "cleanliness". A functional UI shouldn't be "clean", it should contain all the information you need to see (in a clear, differentiable, non-confusing way). 3. This is a stretch, but I think ideal system would differentiate between "currently out of stock" and "discontinued", and filtering out the latter is slightly less of a glaring issue.
- zaarn 6y ago
  There is still a difference between "out of stock" and "discontinued", one is a superset of the other and one implies it will never go out of the state "out of stock" again.
  - AdrianB1 6y ago
    Discontinued products should be delisted.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    If the shop in the original story only hid "discontinued" parts, the author could have still run into this problem if the correct parts were no longer made.
- AdrianB1 6y ago
  I would use the checkbox on the left side (that many stores have) for in stock products.
silvestrov 6y ago
I can easily imagine a manager saying "don't show out-of-stock items as it reflects badly on us". Some bad managers don't think beyond the "awful badge" visuals.
nkrisc 6y ago
I used to work for major US ecommerce site that catered to a more, wizened, population due to previous reputation and longevity in the brick and mortar realm. We would get feedback all the time about the fact that out of stock items were shown on the site. Their expectation of a website was like a physical store: that if it was out of stock, they shouldn't be able to see it there at all. If they saw an item in the search results, they assumed that meant it had to be in stock, or it wouldn't be able to show up on the website. When they clicked the product page and then found out it was out of stock, they were super pissed. It was a completely different mental model driven by a lifetime of shopping in brick and mortar stores and a fundamental misunderstanding of how websites and databases work, which is of course not really their problem nor concern. For some folks showing out of stock items is a degradation of the experience, for others it's an improvement. Know your audience, or at least pick one to target.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  ... or just have a prominent switch on your search result page. [ ] Show out-of-stock items. Unchecked by default, to cater for majority use case.
  - nkrisc 6y ago
    It's that simple! Why didn't we think of that!? Of course that existed. It didn't matter because the initial state did not meet their mental model of how it worked. We probably could have made it the biggest thing on the page and they still would have ignored it because they were not looking for it. For unrelated reasons we were not hiding out of stock items by default. Wasn't my call.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      > It's that simple! Why didn't we think of that!? Many did. I fail to see what's difficult here. You can simultaneously achieve the following: - Provide aforementioned filtering switch. - Sort in-stock results first, or split the results into two groups (in/out stock). - Mark the out-of-stock results clearly on the search result page, e.g. by overlaying a big "OUT OF STOCK" label on top of the item picture. At the risk of sounding smug, I think all this requires is thinking about what your users need to make a decision that's in their best interest. The "clicked the product page and then found out it was out of stock" should never, ever happen; that information needs to be available on the search results page. EDIT: From your edit I understand that the problem boiled down to these items being shown by default, which was unexpected by the audience. That's truly the kind of issue that may become apparent only after deploying and getting feedback from people. That said, were the out-of-stock items clearly marked on the results page? Personally, I'd be super-pissed if they weren't.

loopz 6y ago

Root cause is complexity and inconsistency, though could be unintentional as well.

eitland 6y ago

> I think the fact that out of stock items aren't shown isn't a UX improvement. I see your point but I'd say it can be for certain items. A stupid example: if I was shopping for air fresheners (I'm not;-) I'd rather not see my search results in the webshop polluted by every discontinued version of Wunderbaum they ever had in stock.

barbegal 6y ago
Yes it is still advantageous to demote out of stock items in the search results. But if the store knows a certain Wunderbaum flavor is really popular but not in stock right now it should probably show up fairly highly in the search results. And there is a difference between being temporarily out of stock and discontinued.
eps 6y ago
Just order them by availability. In stock first, out of stock second.
- Semaphor 6y ago
  and if you don't make that clear, I scroll through a bunch of useless results. I can't remember a single time when I wanted out of stock items shown by default.
- pure-awesome 6y ago
  In addition to this, mark them clearly as out-of-stock - fade out the preview image and prepend [out of stock] to the item description.
- OJFord 6y ago
  Ideally make it a choice - I don't like it when I order by price and it's overriden to (availability, price) - maybe it's out of stock because the price is that good, and I'm willing to wait.
polytely 6y ago
Some shops also have an expected delivery delay indicator in addition of their out-of-stock indicator, so if I want to buy a Moog Subharmonicon it will say _out of stock: order now and receive it in about 5 weeks._ Which is a really nice piece of UX in my opinion. [0]: https://www.bax-shop.nl/synthesizer?o=product_cdate https://www.bax-shop.nl/synthesizer?o=product_cdate
lucideer 6y ago
> I see your point but [...] I'd rather not see my search results in the webshop polluted There's three issues with this: 1. In UX, hiding things is a lazy solution to not being able to effectively differentiate items by relevance. There isn't an easy one-size-fits-all answer to doing the latter, which is why you need good, experienced UX people. Hiding things is what the inexperienced/lazy/bad ones do instead. 2. "Polluted" is also a codeword for "not of the clean, white, zero-inbox aesthetic I desire", and in certain situations this excuse is overused to enormously degrade UX in favour of a contrived sense of visual "cleanliness". A functional UI shouldn't be "clean", it should contain all the information you need to see (in a clear, differentiable, non-confusing way). 3. This is a stretch, but I think ideal system would differentiate between "currently out of stock" and "discontinued", and filtering out the latter is slightly less of a glaring issue.
zaarn 6y ago
There is still a difference between "out of stock" and "discontinued", one is a superset of the other and one implies it will never go out of the state "out of stock" again.
- AdrianB1 6y ago
  Discontinued products should be delisted.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  If the shop in the original story only hid "discontinued" parts, the author could have still run into this problem if the correct parts were no longer made.
AdrianB1 6y ago
I would use the checkbox on the left side (that many stores have) for in stock products.

silvestrov 6y ago

I can easily imagine a manager saying "don't show out-of-stock items as it reflects badly on us". Some bad managers don't think beyond the "awful badge" visuals.

nkrisc 6y ago

I used to work for major US ecommerce site that catered to a more, wizened, population due to previous reputation and longevity in the brick and mortar realm. We would get feedback all the time about the fact that out of stock items were shown on the site. Their expectation of a website was like a physical store: that if it was out of stock, they shouldn't be able to see it there at all. If they saw an item in the search results, they assumed that meant it had to be in stock, or it wouldn't be able to show up on the website. When they clicked the product page and then found out it was out of stock, they were super pissed. It was a completely different mental model driven by a lifetime of shopping in brick and mortar stores and a fundamental misunderstanding of how websites and databases work, which is of course not really their problem nor concern. For some folks showing out of stock items is a degradation of the experience, for others it's an improvement. Know your audience, or at least pick one to target.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
... or just have a prominent switch on your search result page. [ ] Show out-of-stock items. Unchecked by default, to cater for majority use case.
- nkrisc 6y ago
  It's that simple! Why didn't we think of that!? Of course that existed. It didn't matter because the initial state did not meet their mental model of how it worked. We probably could have made it the biggest thing on the page and they still would have ignored it because they were not looking for it. For unrelated reasons we were not hiding out of stock items by default. Wasn't my call.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    > It's that simple! Why didn't we think of that!? Many did. I fail to see what's difficult here. You can simultaneously achieve the following: - Provide aforementioned filtering switch. - Sort in-stock results first, or split the results into two groups (in/out stock). - Mark the out-of-stock results clearly on the search result page, e.g. by overlaying a big "OUT OF STOCK" label on top of the item picture. At the risk of sounding smug, I think all this requires is thinking about what your users need to make a decision that's in their best interest. The "clicked the product page and then found out it was out of stock" should never, ever happen; that information needs to be available on the search results page. EDIT: From your edit I understand that the problem boiled down to these items being shown by default, which was unexpected by the audience. That's truly the kind of issue that may become apparent only after deploying and getting feedback from people. That said, were the out-of-stock items clearly marked on the results page? Personally, I'd be super-pissed if they weren't.