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Matrix vs. Drop Down to order products on retail site

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Subject:  Matrix vs. Drop Down to order products on retail site
Author:   dcjarvis:   view profile | all posts by this author | add to favourites
Date:   21:20:21 17 April 2008
 
On 14:08:37 16 April 2008 EmilyMinett wrote:

>The argument for drop downs, is however that they are much
>more intuitive

Hi Emily

Dropdowns are not necessarily "intuitive"! Like most usability questions it is a case of where and how they are used... that's not to say they won't work for your site though.

I would suggest thinking carefully about the task your user is performing.
Break that down into smaller and smaller chunks, and then design the functionality and screen layout around that "mental model" of what they are trying to achieve.

If you can then mock this up as a prototype and test with users, and compare with other similar sites, great. But just thinking through the task while having some empathy for what your user is doing can provide some quick wins at no cost.

Re your original question:
> I was wondering if anyone had done any testing on using
> dropdowns to select products compared with a grid for
> size/colour/availability options?

1. If you can at all avoid it, you should never present an option that is not actually available to buy.

2. Size (from the user's pov) is fairly fixed given that your customers know how your clothes measure up. Once a user has selected a size for a type of product this should be retained by the site and be pre-selected on any further product pages of a similar type. (Can be done with cookies for example).

3. Size should drive which colours are available, and therefore availability should slot into place, so users can select quantity of the item.

On that basis, I think the M&S site does this pretty well (although they haven't cracked the availability problem)
http://www.marksandspencer.com

Hope this helps.

Regards
DJ
 
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