We spent a lot of time talking about this. There'll be so many products, and so many that can fall into multiple categories; and in the end, our categories will be arbitrary anyway. If you're buying an art deco couch, that could be under furniture-couches-large or styles-art deco-furniture or interior-living room-furniture-large or items-large-rectangular-wide or lifestyle-upscale-expensive or style-modern-prewar-art deco or colored-two colors-black and white or lord knows how many others.
Forcing categories means forcing the audience into a particular mental model, and in the case of our store that has so many users of different professions, we inhibit as many as we help. For this, using keywords and allowing powerful filtering will get the user where they want while taking advantage of their own mental model (assuming the manufacturer puts the right combination of keywords in). Yes, we're limiting the user. But I think most people will prefer coming to the problem with their own language. I'm just worried that without Google indexing a big site, we won't even show up on their radar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38306 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
