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Great site if you know exactly what you need, but a lot of this information hierarchy won't work for those just browsing or looking for inspiration. That's the
by danpalmer 4y ago
Great site if you know exactly what you need, but a lot of this information hierarchy won't work for those just browsing or looking for inspiration.
That's the right choice for this site and what I expect it's users want, but not something that every ecommerce site should be aspiring to.
Having built an ecommerce site where the primary use-case was not a specialist who knows exactly what they want, I'd suggest that this is probably the easier type. In my experience, building a rigid hierarchy is the easy part, and building a site around that is straightforward. Add in a user preference of ease of use over looking good, and this isn't a particularly hard problem to solve.
The issue gets harder when categories are subjective, when there are many similar products, when relationships between products are subjective, when browsing, and providing relevant and interesting onward journeys at each step are important for a good user experience, and when design and branding are important for brand trust.
It's easy to be dismissive of the effect of branding, or to say that websites shouldn't be optimising for engagement, but in markets such as fashion, these are critically important to the user experience and perception, and ultimately user satisfaction from the products, and are not just about the bottom line of the business.
tldr: don't apply this all blindly, it's good but relevance depends on the store.
- greggyb 4y agoHaving used McMaster Carr several times with not a clue as to the correct search terms, I must disagree with your assertion that the site only caters to those who know what they are looking for. Vague search terms will give you results more reasonable than I would expect. Every product category and refinable search field has a useful description to help you figure out what you want to search for and how to refine your search. Additionally, broad searches show multiple categories so that you can quickly figure out what categories are even available to start from. Granted, if you do not know what to search for at first, it will take several iterations and some reading to get there, but the critical part is that you can. When I have used McMaster Carr, my experience starting from ignorance has been better than all other e-commerce sites I have used, even when I know what I am looking for on those other sites. The only exception is when I have an exact brand and model I want.
- danpalmer 4y agoI think there's a difference between looking for a thing to solve a specific problem without knowing what it is or the right search terms, and not looking for anything specific at all. To be more concrete, the former might be "my sink is leaking and I need a washer or nut or something for this pipe joint, but I don't know what they're called", vs "I want a more preppy look for a party this weekend". The former has a correct answer, the customer may just not know exactly how to ask for it. The latter is not just subjective in the search terms, but subjective in the solution to the actual problem, and could take many forms, across many categories, including several at once.
- NegativeLatency 4y agoI’ve found it pretty great for the things I’ve needed from them. It’s a lot better for finding the stuff you need than having to click in to multiple listings on say Amazon
- danpalmer 4y agoSure, but my point is that the UX doesn't just lift and shift to any other ecommerce site. Some of this would work for some categories on Amazon, but in my experience in Fashion ecommerce, this sort of site performs poorly. It's important to understand WHY the site is like this, and WHO it's designing for, and then to understand if or how that applies to other sites.