

A UI experiment: show "just the content" - cookingrobot
http://blog.shopobot.com/so-many-shoes-a-shopping-experiment

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cookingrobot
In response to this thread about how hard it is to see content on the campers
shoe site: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4032486>

We're experimenting with UI for browsing huge sets of options like shoes. What
do you think? Refreshing or overwhelming?

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lrem
I think: noscript unfriendly.

Then, it seems crowded. But that's what physical shops are like. Not sure if
it's good or not.

~~~
cookingrobot
Thanks for the feedback! Since we were experimenting with density here, it is
fairly extreme. The verdict is out on whether the extra density is valuable
when user are in real shopping scenarios.. That's what we'll be testing with
different categories and tweaks.

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lmm
I like the look. I don't like the way the horizontal scrollbars appear on
mouseover; it's a distraction when I'm moving my mouse over the page.

~~~
cookingrobot
Good feedback. This was a compromise to allow mouse users to scroll without
having to show the scrollbars all the time. There are other approaches we can
explore.

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the_bear
This doesn't have much to do with the core idea you're testing, but I'm not
wild about the filtering UI. If I click on "Fashion Sneakers" it filters the
results, but there's no clear way to get back. It also seems like once you're
viewing fashion sneakers, that shouldn't be a link anymore (I get frustrated
when a page links to itself). A normal breadcrumb system should work fine.

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veridies
Showed it to my sister, who is much more interested in shoes than I am. She
disliked the small size of the icons, and she had trouble finding the brands
of shoes she was interested in. She also wanted to be able to more easily sort
by style; she wanted flip-flops, and couldn't easily just look for all flip-
flops.

~~~
cookingrobot
Thanks for this feedback. The filtering system is pretty non-existent in this
version (just one level of categories), and that will have to be integrated.

Adjusting what's show in the view is important - either with search, or
filter, or by organizing by similar items. Those other pivots will built on
top.

For this v1 we were mostly exploring the feeling of this much density and
scale of results - so helpful to hear that she thought the images are too
small.

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Geee
I think this is really great for products such as shoes, when basically just
looks matter. Left/right scrolling works well with magic mouse, and probably
even better on touch devices. Just add simple social features ala Pinterest
and you have a winner.

~~~
cookingrobot
Thanks! Agree that the 2d scrolling works best with magic mouse, or touch, or
a good trackpad. We have lots of ideas for social features too - but one test
at a time..

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scumola
All of the white New Balance athletic shoes are for women. Where are the NB
men's shoes?

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a_macgregor
The demo is down.

~~~
cookingrobot
Thanks. It seems up right now, but with this many users it's taking a while to
complete the queries to get started. Sorry about that!

