March 30, 2005

More Context For Feature Finders

from the department of random ideas:

No matter where you search for a digital camera, you are likely to see "feature finders" that let you narrow the list of product candidates by selecting must-have attributes. In many cases, you must know everything about the features before using these tools, because there is no help or context within the feature-finding area (see: PriceGrabber). Perhaps if feature finding took place in a more context-rich environment, these tools would have more users and encourage more drill-down activity.

In-Context Information

If you want to see product information in the right place at the right time, look no further than usability-lovin' Epinions. Under resolution on their digital camera feature-finder page, there is a "What is resolution?" link, which leads to a brief description. Also, at the top of the page, they have links to an in-depth buying guide and a practical "wizard" tool. My only quibble is the "What is resolution?" link could include, or link to, information from the buying guide and/or wizard tool, such as how many megapixels you will need for various print sizes. After all, the goal is to give people enough actionable information so they can be comfortable with their buying decision, and you do not accomplish this goal with a dictionary definition.

Feature History Graphs

Honestly, I don't know if I have seen this before, but the images have been bouncing around in my head for some time. Maybe it can be useful, maybe not. All I am presenting is the possibility that product-feature trends can be useful shopping information. When I say product-feature trends, we could simply track the number of products with each feature over time, but I think it would be more interesting to track changes in user drill-down behavior. Maybe both could be useful, plus the relationship between availability and popularity. We have cool tools for prices (see: NexTag), why no cool tools for features?

This first example is probably only good for curiousity...

...but what about features that have competing industry standards? In these cases, pick the wrong format, and bad things happen. In some cases, you will have less cross-device compatibility, and in most cases, you will have less "bang for the buck" over time. In the graph below, all things being equal, which memory format would you choose?

The above examples are for the best-served product category on the Web, digital cameras, but this type of supplemental information could be used for other areas. How about vacations? Let's say you have a limited budget and unlimited flexibility. What if you could look up, by city, the average daily price of airfare and hotels for the last year? Now what if you could overlay that graph with information about temperature and precipitation? Okay, I'd better stop, I'm getting silly.

Or am I?... :-)

Most-Popular Features

Graphs are great, but there are possibilities with text, too.

Amazon.com taps the "collective wisdom" of its shoppers at the item level. Who is to say a comparison shopping site could not do the same thing for the most popular features?

Or, in addition to including the number of items in parentheses for each feature-option link, perhaps there is a way to also include a popularity percentage next to all features?

Summary

Like I say, maybe this could be useful, maybe not. All I know is we have a lot of shopping engines providing roughly the same functionality, maybe it is time for some experimentation.

More Context For Feature Finders
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on March 30, 2005 at 9:42 AM
Archived at Feature Finders | Shopping Search Usability