Why are so many websites switching to templates that are so un-navigable?

[Dan Friedrichs]

Example: I used to buy Blum Tandem slides from Woodworker's Hardware because their website made it easy to understand what clips, brackets, etc, went with the slides. They had a nice, if not simple, website. The page for the Blum Tandems had installation instructions, you could select what length you wanted, etc.

They've switched the website to some template that looks like it was designed for generic e-commerce, and is impossible to navigate. How is this useful parameterization?
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If I search for the part number (536h), I do find them, but the item page no longer has anything useful (install instructions, other lengths, needed clips/brackets, etc). But, hey, if I want to tweet about them, or share them to Facebook, or offer a "Testimonial", I guess I can!

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There should be some logical taxonomy, but if I'm looking for drawer slides, do I look in "Kitchen" or "Bathroom"? What sense is there in having "closets" in the same top-level as "hinges"? Do no closets have hinges?
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Lee Valley did something similar. Again, I don't see how this type of parameterization is useful. If I'm looking for a protractor, is my "Activity" "framing" or "construction"? Clearly, "Marking" is not the same top-level category as "Guitar making". This is not useful!

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So I don't get it. It feels like they took a step back 10 years (in terms of usability). What is driving companies to take their websites and shoe-horn them into these generic e-commerce website templates that clearly are non-ideal for the products they're trying to sell?

[Andrew Seemann]

It probably is some thing about making them mobile device friendly. Not sure if they are succeeding or not, but it is a trend I have noticed as well. Maybe they just want to support only one website, rather than one for desktops (for Luddites like me that still use them) and one for tablets/phablets/phones, like normal people use.

[John Ziebron]

Andrew, did you just admit to not being normal?:D I still use a desktop computer with a large monitor. I have a smart phone and a small tablet (that I seldom use) but I wouldn't think of looking at one of those type websites on them. I think we are going to be getting a generation of young folks who will be very nearsighted.

[John K Jordan]

Any time you experience a site that you think is not useful or a step backwards, take the time to give them feedback. Sometimes this will result in changes.

JKJ

[Steve Eure]

If you want a headache type website to question, just go to Lowes and HD. They are the worst. You can type in a specific item that you know they have and it will give you everything under the sun except what you are trying to find. I don't have a clue who designs these websites, but it's probably the same idiots who design automobiles.

[Bill Dufour]

HD and Lowes seem to forcing you to go into the store to see if they carry an item. I thank it is intentional that they do not use logic in their search engines. the more limiters you have the more, not less, results you get
I believe they think if you go to their website you will buy something so it is in their interests to make your search hard so they can sell you stuff that no one ever searches for.
Example if your search includes "-plastic". it should exclude plastic from the results. A hoe depot and lowes it will include every item that has the word "plastic" in the description!
Bill D
Bill D.

[Steve Eure]

John, I did send an email to Lowes with no response from them. I then mentioned it lt the local store manager and she just shrugged her shoulders. As if to say, "Who cares". Makes me want to spend my money elsewhere if I have the time to wait.

[David Bassett]

... So I don't get it. It feels like they took a step back 10 years (in terms of usability). What is driving companies to take their websites and shoe-horn them into these generic e-commerce website templates that clearly are non-ideal for the products they're trying to sell?

Rob Lee addressed a lot of this, over many posts on several sites, when the new Lee Valley site went live.

If I understand it, two big reasons jumped out to me. First Google started prioritizing ease of mobile use so highly they'd dropped entirely out of search results for their own products. Second the different, and changing, regulations were becoming impossible to implement on their old webpage based site. I guess the new template based, database driven, multi-format sites are the future. Rob said there are a lot of knobs they are still learning and haven't used yet and they hope to have their site back to as useful as it was. I hope they succeed and, if they do, it'd tell us the rest just don't care enough to make that effort.

[Kev Williams]

Not exactly on topic but almost- ;)

I found this at my local Lowes, thought it was pretty cool, turns out it's a great bathroom fan, I highly recommend it if you're in the market! - Bluetooth speaker, blue and off-white night lites, 4-brightness main light which is like REALLY BRIGHT on high, and it really moves the air out while barely making a sound--
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-but there wasn't an online user manual.
and as it turns out, not one in the box either, just an installation guide..

So I go to the Homewerks website, and right on the front page it shows the fan I bought!
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-but as I'm searching their website for a manual, not only do they not have a manual, they don't sell this fan!
Why would you put a photo of a fan on your main page that's not for sale on your website? There's 14 fans listed, and this one isn't one of them!

I still don't know where to get a manual, but it's pretty easy to figure out, thankfully!

[Jim Becker]

Two likely reasons...one, to support mobile device using customers which are quickly becoming the primary way many folks shop and two, because many, if not most, are now using a few specific ecommerce service providers rather than running their own systems. You'll probably notice that many of the sites look "somewhat the same" and that's because they are, in fact, the same service provider and in many cases, there is limited customization available. IE...it's all about money. :)

[Dan Friedrichs]

Two likely reasons...one, to support mobile device using customers which are quickly becoming the primary way many folks shop and two, because many, if not most, are now using a few specific ecommerce service providers rather than running their own systems. You'll probably notice that many of the sites look "somewhat the same" and that's because they are, in fact, the same service provider and in many cases, there is limited customization available. IE...it's all about money. :)

While that may be true, in my case, I just bought the Blum parts from Amazon because I couldn't find them on WW Hardware. Which is sad, because WW Hardware is a local business (to me).

[Jim Becker]

Oh, I understand, Dan. Amazon gets more and more of my hardware (and CNC tooling) business simply because it's easier. I was just providing the reasons I've seen for what you described.

[Andrew Seemann]

Two likely reasons...one, to support mobile device using customers which are quickly becoming the primary way many folks shop and two, because many, if not most, are now using a few specific ecommerce service providers rather than running their own systems. You'll probably notice that many of the sites look "somewhat the same" and that's because they are, in fact, the same service provider and in many cases, there is limited customization available. IE...it's all about money. :)

It is probably also about security and compliance (which is indirectly about the money, but mostly about staying in business). Having a third party e-commence run the site at least transfers (some of the) liability to them. No one wants to be the next big we-got-hacked news story. Most small and even medium sized businesses don't have the expertise or resources to fight all the hackers and malware out there. Even big companies struggle with it.

At some point it makes sense to just give up and let the experts run your site. And 'the experts' want as few templates and as little code to manage as possible, as every little bit of customization and complexity here and there increases exponentially the number of things that can go wrong or be hacked.

That said, a lot of those new sites are annoying to use at best an impossible to find things at worst.

[Jim Becker]

Yes, that's true, Andrew. New security and privacy requirements are having significant impact on ecommerce, even if a business isn't taking orders from other global geographic areas. Using a service provider means that even if one isn't required to meet certain standards, they are still going to be covered because other businesses using the same provider may have those requirements. The global economy affects everything at this point.

[Norman Pirollo]

Years ago, web sites were highly customized and individualized. I used to program in HTML but it became more and more difficult to keep up with the ever-changing technology. There used to be no standards in web site development. It was the Wild West . My first web site in 1997 would work with IE but not with Netscape (remember that browser...lol). So had to kluge the HTML code to attempt to work on either platform. It did get better but the standards have become complex. Fast forward to today and I have one web site on Shopify and another in WordPress ( had someone create it for me). Will likely move that web site to a common web site serving platform such as Shopify. My wife's web site for her jewelry is through Wix. What I am saying is that I have given up on keeping up with web site technology, especially with the advent of mobile support. It can be a nightmare to make a web site work on desktop and mobile. I have embraced these web site providers.. So why not leave it to the experts. Downside is that most, if not all web sites have a similar look and feel (GUI) aside from small customizations. The back end is the same however. So maybe this explains how web sites behave similarly today.

[Larry Edgerton]

I feel your pain Dan. I'm old and not a tech, don't want to be, and when a site is hard to use I move on. I actually still prefer catalogs, with the information I need for installation on the same page and do business with companies that provide what I want.

[Dan Friedrichs]

Years ago, web sites were highly customized and individualized. I used to program in HTML but it became more and more difficult to keep up with the ever-changing technology. There used to be no standards in web site development. It was the Wild West . My first web site in 1997 would work with IE but not with Netscape (remember that browser...lol). So had to kluge the HTML code to attempt to work on either platform. It did get better but the standards have become complex. Fast forward to today and I have one web site on Shopify and another in WordPress ( had someone create it for me). Will likely move that web site to a common web site serving platform such as Shopify. My wife's web site for her jewelry is through Wix. What I am saying is that I have given up on keeping up with web site technology, especially with the advent of mobile support. It can be a nightmare to make a web site work on desktop and mobile. I have embraced these web site providers.. So why not leave it to the experts. Downside is that most, if not all web sites have a similar look and feel (GUI) aside from small customizations. The back end is the same however. So maybe this explains how web sites behave similarly today.

I like this explanation. I can entirely see how a small, non-tech company can't effectively maintain their own website. You have to wonder, though - they can typeset, proof, and print their own catalogs, but "the internet" is too complicated? That's an interesting twist.

[Andrew Seemann]

I like this explanation. I can entirely see how a small, non-tech company can't effectively maintain their own website. You have to wonder, though - they can typeset, proof, and print their own catalogs, but "the internet" is too complicated? That's an interesting twist.

No one ever hacked a Linotype machine from halfway across the globe:)

[mike stenson]

No one ever hacked a Linotype machine from halfway across the globe:)

and stole 300,000 peoples credit card and/ Personally Identifiable Information. Just keeping up with GDPR (Europe), CCPA (California), etc requirements is challenging for large organizations, let alone a small company (so far only about 58% of all countries have such laws, but that number is increasing).

[Rob Luter]

Too often the web designers create sites using priorities that suit them. It must be easy to maintain, have utility over multiple platforms, be easy to maintain, Impress their peers, need ongoing (billable) maintenance, and be easy to maintain. Sometimes It seems the consumer is secondary in the equation.

[Curt Harms]

It is probably also about security and compliance (which is indirectly about the money, but mostly about staying in business). Having a third party e-commence run the site at least transfers (some of the) liability to them. No one wants to be the next big we-got-hacked news story. Most small and even medium sized businesses don't have the expertise or resources to fight all the hackers and malware out there. Even big companies struggle with it.

At some point it makes sense to just give up and let the experts run your site. And 'the experts' want as few templates and as little code to manage as possible, as every little bit of customization and complexity here and there increases exponentially the number of things that can go wrong or be hacked.

That said, a lot of those new sites are annoying to use at best an impossible to find things at worst.

Using a payment processor makes perfect sense, they are the 'experts' and assume responsibility for financial transactions. Having a company with a 'one size fits all' philosophy designing web sites for plumbing supplies and womens' lingerie seems a little questionable to me.

[Andrew Seemann]

Using a payment processor makes perfect sense, they are the 'experts' and assume responsibility for financial transactions. Having a company with a 'one size fits all' philosophy designing web sites for plumbing supplies and womens' lingerie seems a little questionable to me.

Actually, it doesn't matter whether you are selling AC fan belts or garter belts, the websites are doing the same thing, presenting products for people to select and buy. They all do the same thing: show product categories, sub-categories, sub-sub categories, size, color, brand, etc; they have a short blurb about the founder of the company; they have pretty pictures and helpful little articles on how to select PEX tubing or pair hosiery to dresses. The same template should work for both. Just put a picture of a smiling guy happily working on some piece of difficult AC equipment on one and some alluringly dressed, unrealistically airbrushed woman on the other.

The devil is in the details. It takes time and resources to make all those categories, sub-categories, sub-sub categories, size, color, brand, breakouts; write helpful articles, and keep everything up to date. It is a collaboration between the seller and the developer. Sometimes it works well, and sometimes it doesn't. The same company that doesn't have an e-commerce expert may also not have a marketing genius that knows how to make each useful subcategory to the buyer. And the sales people that know that detail might not want to waste valuable time helping out, especially if they are on commission (I don't get paid to do this crap!).

And it isn't just about money. For example, at the family biz, the owner (my uncle) doesn't have the attention span to give all the necessary details to the web designer (my sister-in-law) to update the developer (my brother) to keep the website current. Plus it is a seasonal business, so the time when the website is most needed, no one has the time to actually maintain the website. This is despite the fact that my sister-in-law and brother don't charge anything to run the website.

If you want an example of a good home improvement website, look at the Menards site, it is leaps and bounds ahead of HD's. They actually break out products in a useful way. HD irritates me to the point where I don't even go to it anymore. The irony is, they very well could be using the same company and the same template; one company just executed it better than the other. Bafflingly, some of the worst offenders are very large companies that in theory should have the most resources available. It might be that the sheer number of products (and customer needs/wants) overwhelms even them.

[Brian Tymchak]

Too often the web designers create sites using priorities that suit them. It must be easy to maintain, have utility over multiple platforms, be easy to maintain, Impress their peers, need ongoing (billable) maintenance, and be easy to maintain. Sometimes It seems the consumer is secondary in the equation.

Almost all of the design contstraints you listed come from the "business" side, not the technical side. However, I do agree to some portion with your final comment that the consumer comes secondary in the new age of platform architectures. Business side which usually controls the funding wants to provide customer experience at the lowest cost point possible, which means moving to AWS or Shopify, or a few others. The cost for hosting a site on AWS is amazingly cheaper than hosting on premise, and scaling a site, while not truly as automatic as advertized, is also so much easier than doing it on premise. So, moving to AWS, in my experience, forces some compromises in architecture, such as moving away from some web support packages (content management, etc) that have not embraced AWS to those that have. These choices are what drive sites to look and behave more and more alike.

I do hope that Lee Valley gets back to providing the same level of info it did in the past. It was my favorite web site to visit as I could actually learn something. It guided the user through the product selection process. I remember the "home" page for their hand planes, where there was a very nice description of the different types of planes, what bevel up/ bevel down meant, etc. For me as a newbie in hand planes, that info was a gold mine. Also, Lee Valley needs to add a lot more filter options so the user can drill down to a much smaller set of choices. I quickly tire of scrolling through endless rows on endless pages trying to find something that fits my need.

As a designer/tester (retired) and now just user of commercial websites, I would have recommended that the current Lee Valley site should have stayed in the test labs until it was fleshed out more. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised that factors such as expiring contracts/licenses for supporting products forced the bare bones site into production. I would have expected though that the site evolve more quickly to a better user experience than it has.

[Larry Edgerton]

and stole 300,000 peoples credit card and/ Personally Identifiable Information. Just keeping up with GDPR (Europe), CCPA (California), etc requirements is challenging for large organizations, let alone a small company (so far only about 58% of all countries have such laws, but that number is increasing).


so..... The internet was lauded as a boon for small business, and now the internet will be just one more hurdle driving small businesses to bankruptcy court? Ironic. Or planned?:D

[Steve Demuth]

There are a number of things going on. Of those mentioned in this thread so far, I think GDPR and other privacy regulations, and security generally are the least important. GDPR is a pain to comply with, but it has relatively little impact on the visual or organizational character of a web site. Where these do impact is potentially on the cost of operating a bespoke website. When a business is driven to an off the shelf "platform" solution, customizing the organization and appearance require learning a whole new set of skills. Creating a good catalog in a generic catalog system for a complex product line is hard. Hoping search bails you out is fine, but the site-specific search engines are inferior to Google, so people search on Google, which takes them to Amazon or a couple of other top-line sites, not your specialty site.

The drive to make everything mobile friendly has a big impact. Mobile device screens are too small to deliver a lot of information efficiently - forcing one to fragment the experience.

Then there is the rise of "task orientation" as the organizing principle for much of user experience. "What do you want to do?" as the starting point is fine for someone who doesn't know what they want to buy, but is enormous frustration for those who do.

Finally, I think retail companies that aren't Amazon simply can't afford to spend what they used to on web sites. Way too many people search for something on a great shop jammed with information tuned for some specialty, then search by part number or exact product description to get what they want from Amazon, often cheaper, probably with free delivery via Prime course it's not free, but it is already paid for).

[mike stenson]

so..... The internet was lauded as a boon for small business, and now the internet will be just one more hurdle driving small businesses to bankruptcy court? Ironic. Or planned?:D

The Internet was never planned to be a commerce platform.

[mike stenson]

There are a number of things going on. Of those mentioned in this thread so far, I think GDPR and other privacy regulations, and security generally are the least important.

I'm not sure I agree. The infra required to support all of the privacy and security requirements has gotten complicated and the fines for violation are onerous (unlike the fines in most US states). We spend a huge amount of time on GDPR (etc, since there are many more) compliance and I do nothing directly concerned with e-Commerce. If you add to that the fact that on-prem, or ever colo'd systems are so much more expensive to maintain (from just the hardware infrastructure costs alone) than cloud providers. It's no wonder that a business would move to a cloud provider. At that point, I'm not sure what they get for flexibility and customizability with their platform.

[Myk Rian]

I was trying to buy parts for our oven yesterday from searspartsdirect and never did get to the checkout and pay for the order. The little wheel just kept spinning around. Tried partselect. Problems there also.
Finally went to easyapplianceparts. Found my parts, put them in the cart, and went to checkout. Paypal was a bonus. I left feedback how easy it was and kudos to their IT people.

[Mike Kreinhop]

The GDPR is the reason I can't access the Home Depot website, and several other websites of interest, that are blocked because the owners haven't made the changes necessary to comply with the EU regulation. It is much easier to block EU IP addresses.

I'm in Birmingham, AL now on a short visit, and went into the nearest HD store to browse for "must have" items. I tried to use my iPhone in the store to search for something on the HD website, but since my phone still uses the German IP, I was blocked. Walmart has figured this out, since I was able to visit its site with no problems.

[Kev Williams]

The Internet was never planned to be a commerce platform.
From the onset the Internet's- or rather, Tim Berners-Lee's 'plan'- was to enable physicists to share information from anywhere in the world without everyone needing the same hardware and software. But it sure didn't take long for browser designers to figure out the gold mine they were dealing with...

[Steve Demuth]

The GDPR is the reason I can't access the Home Depot website, and several other websites of interest, that are blocked because the owners haven't made the changes necessary to comply with the EU regulation. It is much easier to block EU IP addresses.

I'm in Birmingham, AL now on a short visit, and went into the nearest HD store to browse for "must have" items. I tried to use my iPhone in the store to search for something on the HD website, but since my phone still uses the German IP, I was blocked. Walmart has figured this out, since I was able to visit its site with no problems.

That doesn't surprise me. If they are not trying to sell in Europe, it wouldn't be worth the cost.

[Steve Demuth]

I'm not sure I agree. The infra required to support all of the privacy and security requirements has gotten complicated and the fines for violation are onerous (unlike the fines in most US states). We spend a huge amount of time on GDPR (etc, since there are many more) compliance and I do nothing directly concerned with e-Commerce. If you add to that the fact that on-prem, or ever colo'd systems are so much more expensive to maintain (from just the hardware infrastructure costs alone) than cloud providers. It's no wonder that a business would move to a cloud provider. At that point, I'm not sure what they get for flexibility and customizability with their platform.

GDPR compliance for systems generally, if you are doing business with Europeans, is painful and expensive. The website complications aren't that bad, however.

[Mike Kreinhop]

That doesn't surprise me. If they are not trying to sell in Europe, it wouldn't be worth the cost.

There are a lot of military stationed in Europe with U.S. APO/FPO mailing addresses who might disagree. In my case, I wanted to order some items for delivery to my sister in Florida, but was blocked. Fortunately, there are plenty of other U.S. businesses who don't block European IP addresses.

[mike stenson]

GDPR compliance for systems generally, if you are doing business with Europeans, is painful and expensive. The website complications aren't that bad, however.

All of those websites (we are talking about e-commerce, so we have names, usernames, addresses, etc.. so PI, PII, and the works), have backends that are subject to the afore mentioned compliance. There's really no way around GDPR compliance, other than banning EU IPs.

[Steve Demuth]

All of those websites (we are talking about e-commerce, so we have names, usernames, addresses, etc.. so PI, PII, and the works), have backends that are subject to the afore mentioned compliance. There's really no way around GDPR compliance, other than banning EU IPs.

Believe me, I am aware. We see over 1 million patients/year, from around the world, and have 40M unique visitors to our website per month. E-commerce is a part of that. So, GDPR compliance has been front and center in my team's relationship with the risk and compliance group for several years now. My point was actually the same as yours: the pain is not in the websites, it's in all the back-office systems.

[Steve Demuth]

There are a lot of military stationed in Europe with U.S. APO/FPO mailing addresses who might disagree. In my case, I wanted to order some items for delivery to my sister in Florida, but was blocked. Fortunately, there are plenty of other U.S. businesses who don't block European IP addresses.

Well, it is an awfully simplistic shortcut. They could make their website GDPR compliant as an information source, and block transactions from Credit Cards with a European billing address and shipments to European shipping addresses. If you don't have facilities in Europe, don't advertise in Europe, and block orders from and to Europe, you are not subject to GDPR.

[Roger Feeley]

The OP poses some questions other than HTML techie questions. For instance, why are hinges at the same level as closets. It appears to me that they farmed out their website organization to people who can code but don't understand the products. Over my 30 years in software, I met plenty of people who could write code but had no idea what to do with it. Big tech is starting to get the message. They are starting to place value on product knowledge and not just the ability to write code. They are starting to value Liberal Arts degrees to work in concert with the Computer Science degrees.

I worked for a company that competed in the real-time financial information. Basically, we ingested all of the quotes for stocks, commodities, forex and government debt from every source in the world. We consolidated it and presented it to our customers very fast (sub one second). One time, we went through a major rewrite of our user interface mostly so our sales people would have something cool to show off. Meanwhile, Micheal Bloomberg was cleaning our clocks without changing his clunky, text-driven, interface a bit. The 'Bloomberg Box' had the same interface using the same commands almost from it's inception and his customers loved it. As he put it, the customers just wanted answers. He used to say that no trader ever went home and said, "Honey, I lost a billion dollars today but it's ok because the user interface was really cool." My point is that just because something can be changed doesn't mean it should be changed. Those Bloomberg customers knew that they could time in the same few cryptic keystrokes and get the same report so it was worth learning what the commands were. On the other hand, we kept re-arranging the deck chairs and just made our customers mad.

Another Bloomberg story (not political). I was in NY once and a sales guy offered to take me to a trading floor. We show up and have to wait for 45 minutes until some guy gets out of a meeting. While we were waiting, a Bloomberg guy shows up and they waved him on in. Inside, the trading floor almost came to a halt. They gathered around this guy like groupies around a rock star. That's because the Bloomberg salesman never showed up without some sort of gift. He always had a little tip or trick or new report that would help these traders make money. We finally got in but the floor didn't notice because our sales guy just showed up around contract renewal time or to help resolve a problem.