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?