UXD: User Experience Design

Wheels on a boat

Charles Field, Monday, January 8, 2007 @ 6:27 pm

A couple of days ago someone sent me a link to a flash catalog piece...

I have seen these kinds of things before.

And I always wonder why the idea gets repeated. I suspect it is because catalog based retailers see the Book as some kind of golden calf which is due irrational worship. The downfall is in the data-density difference between print and screen is the culprit; print holds so much more that the on screen imitation is irrelevant. The magnifying glass shows a smaller width than a column of type; not being able to read a full line makes multiple lines an instantly rejected experience, fomenting shockingly derisive thoughts on the part of a user.

I have seen this done better, maybe it was a Lands End version... It popped up a new window which was larger and had better controls.

The next question is what would make it work? Is there value to this format that drives otherwise knowledgeable adults to keep trying this metaphor?

If you assumed a 1024 x 768 user base, you would have a larger  beginning state. A very large magnifying glass, or better yet- zoom capabilities, would allow you to move into the page. Which returns us to the question of value.

What is it that retailers are seeking here? I think it is the experience of browsing in a lateral fashion and focussing in on some desirable or intriguing item... A simple but durable pleasure. And the notion of lateral non-hierarchical browsing is certainly a mainstay of the web.

As well, they are looking to leverage the page layout techniques that they find successful in print. This is where things break down; cluttered web pages, whether imitating print or not don’t tend to function very well for impulse surfing. If the page design were less dense with more whitespace you might be able to leverage one medium against the other. However this becomes a series of decisions as to how your product offering combine with the semantic codes connoted by the design choices this would require.

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user experience design User Experience Design

Comments: 2 so far

  1. As a consumer and not a designer, my biggest fault with “online catalogs” is that they’re unwieldy. The best part of a catalog is its portability. I can look at it anywhere and it’s relatively small (esp. in the case of Ikea). Looking through 370 pages online is just a big pain. Who has time to go through all that? They’d do better with a “Best Sellers” catalog of some of their most popular or newest products — at 20 pages, tops — with “If you like this product, you may also like…” links/photos, etc. in the detail.

    I think Target does a good job with their sale circular/online catalog. It’s short enough to look through in 5 minutes and there are various levels of detail. http://weeklyad.target.com/target/default.aspx?action=entryflash&ref=nav2_footer_weeklyad

    Comment by aminick, Tuesday, January 9, 2007 @ 10:16 am

  2. Why thanks for the comment, Amy. Don’t go wearing those Manolo’s out in the rain…

    Seriously though, I entirely agree.

    I think that there are much more web savvy ideas that match with the particular experience of a web site; like a dynamic list of recently viewed items.

    Both Target and Amazon do this, among others. I find Targets implementation less cluttered and much more effective.

    Comment by CharlesF, Saturday, January 20, 2007 @ 6:24 pm

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