Information architecture, why is everything different?
So, you are inside of a web shop and found two products you like and want to compare easily. After you found a way to put both product properties next to each other, you find the info doesn’t match up and you need to cross referencing two completely different product descriptions. How do we solve this?
Now, this looks like an easy one to tackle; just make everything the same. But how do you go about setting up the information? A microwave doesn’t have mp3 functionality, and for an mp3 player you don’t need to know how many “Watts” it is. So the moment I started thinking about this, it became more complicated then I initially thought.
First of all, many web shops are doing this wrong, get all the information you can get about a product. Don’t filter on what you think is useful, let the user decide!
I think the solution lies in using categories with shared properties and arranging them in a way that is always the same. Something like this:
Title | Price | Rating
General introduction
General category properties 01
Specific category properties 02
Dimensions
So, if you apply this to comparing two sets of headphones, you’ll get the some sort of “general audio” property for the general category. This can then later be applied to a multitude of products. The “general audio” property can be applied to speakers, dolby surround systems etc. Next to that, you have the specific category, which then can be something like “headphones“. In this category all of the possible properties for a certain product are integrated. For both these categories there should be a standard format in which the properties are shown so you can exactly compare the two. This might be the most important part!
After you have the comparison, I thing there should be some sort of a button in which you can eliminate matching properties. So you only have the differences between the objects.
Now, I think this post, although (very) short, describes a big annoyance under consumers. I know I find myself wanting to compare two product only to go on the internet to find all of the properties since the web shop doesn’t have them. How do you experience this?
Next up: Check-out & Log-in