Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Greg Nudelman

Greg Nudelman — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:08:40 GMT

Thank you for this thought-provoking article. I think the way we treat our participants reflects the way the company treats their customers. I really like your use of the term “partners”. In my recent article I proposed the concept of “experience partners” as a whole new way of thinking about our customers as partners in holistic product experiences. I think it dovetails nicely into your point about respecting participants:

http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000276.php

Thanks!
Greg

Greg Nudelman — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:32:20 GMT

Hi Draka—

No money, decorous or otherwise. I just wanted to give away my best design to date as a kind of social experiment. That said, there are many critical insights that simply would not fit in the article, so if you are thinking of implementing something like this, let me know: Greg@DesignCaffeine.com

Glad people are finding this article useful—thank you all for your comments!
Greg

Greg Nudelman — Wed, 12 May 2010 18:39:52 GMT

Hi Christine and John—thank you both for your comments.

John: ”...this can lead to unintended consequences like zero results unless you drop other conflicting facets…” I addressed this exact issue in: “3. Automatically retain relevant query information”—yes, I recommend you drop conflicting facets. As to what algorithm to use to select the facets to drop, it will depend entirely on your system: some combination of visitors, conversion, available inventory and category could all be considered. My background is in software engineering, and I can definitely help you build the best algorithm for your needs.

Christine: “if you allowed a user to select both Nikon and Canon, would you display both facet values in the breadcrumb trail?” How the OR is implemented, and whether you need it the OR function at all will depend solely on how the system is to be used. For example, it’s rarely useful to show two categories joined with OR, but atomic values like sizes and colors quite naturally fall into OR paradigm. I discuss some of the filtering challenges here: http://www.designcaffeine.com/2010/articles/321/ and these challenges certainly apply to IFB. Plus, there is a whole question of using a “Go” button vs. an Ajax call to support multiple-select… Again the answer depends on the business and customer goals you are trying to achieve.

Based on high interest of implementing IFB, I am doing a series of 1-2 day workshops at client’s locations designed to address the specifics of individual systems and ensure successful implementation. Please feel free to email me at Greg [at] DesignCaffeine.com to see how we can continue the conversation.
Thanks again for your comments!
- Greg