Was this designed by an idiot?
I entered 'AEG saw'.
No 'exact' results were returned, just the following 'possible matches';
Hanson Sand and Cement Mortar Maxi Pack Supamix Slab Fix Maxi Pack 25kg Fatmax ADJ Single Saw Horse Silver Effect Response Prem Wireless Home And Away Alarm Chrome Soap Dish Gold Effect Soap Dish White Soap Dish B&Q Sow And Grow Miracle-Gro Slow Release Acr Plant Food Sentry Fire-Safe Security Chest
WTF designed that search facility?
That was my conclusion!
In message , newshound writes
The B&Q website must indeed rank as one of the worst for finding what you are actually looking for.
Next time the "What do you think of our website?" pop-up appears. I think I'll waste some time by answering their questions, and submitting it.
Or maybe clever... If we dont have what you want you are still going to look at something.
However it is annoying when they dont work the way you think they should. Same those websites that take ages to load up, I am usually long gone by then.
Design guidelines that I think reasonable say that pages should not take more than eight seconds to load and that customers should be able to find what they want in no more than three clicks.
Colin Bignell
Try the IKEA one for vagueness ...
In article , Ian Jackson writes
Ah, that will be the self serving questionnaire that drags you screaming and kicking in the direction that they want you to go and gives you minimal opportunity (any other items?) to report your description of their shortcomings. A carefully designed questionnaire can deliver 95% customer satisfaction from the angriest and most dissatisfied respondent.
It will indeed be a waste of your time, but hey . . . .
It is complete and utter rubbish. I would never bother looking on it again.
Peter Crosland
Yep more or less.
I guess the "designers" measure the eight seconds to load when they are loading it on their 50GHz workstation over a gigbit ethernet connection from a 1000GHz development server that is doing nothing else but serving that page. That eight seconds becomes eighty over a
2MBps connection from a busy server to an 1GHz single core machine, that has to run acres of javascript to place a specific letter T at a given position in a fixed sized box that is too small to contain that sized T. B-)The three clicks is more menu depth than clicks to result, provided the trail is good you can go quite deep and a crumb trail line at the top helps enormously.
Home > Plumbing > Taps > Spares > Washers > 1/2"
Five clicks but perfectly acceptable.
No, it was designed by a focus group of idiots.
Owain
Uh?
Home. Where is 'Plumbing'? Hover cursor over Gardens, Rooms, Decor etc. No. It's not under any of those. Ah! There it is - in small print, eighth along in the row of 'Popular Searches'. Click on 'Plumbing'. "You are here: Home >> Fix >> Plumbing" Look at 'By Category'. No. No taps. Scroll down and look at pictures. It must be under 'Plumbing Supplies'. Click on 'Plumbing Supplies'. "You are here: Home >> Fix >> Plumbing >> Plumbing Supplies" Look at 'By Category'. No. Still no taps. Scroll down and look at pictures. No. No taps. Look again at 'By Category'. Try (without any serious expectations) 'Plumbing Fittings'. No go. Try (in desperation) 'Sink Accessories'. No go. Decide I've got better things to do at the moment. Give up. Will try later. I know 'taps' are in there somewhere!
Rooms\Bathrooms\Bathroom taps or Rooms\Kitchens\Kitchen sinks and taps.
Took about five seconds. That's about a quarter of what it took to load the page!
I agree, though, the site is far too clever for its own good and mostly obtuse and obstructive. How can "Tap" return no direct results?
In message , Skipweasel writes
But I was chasing 1/2" washers (not taps), trying to go down the same road as Dave Liquorice. Taps was just a pit-stop en route.
To me a saw is a long object with teeth with which you cut wood by hand. I don't know what an AEG saw is. So I looked it up on Google for a definition. It says that it is an electric circular saw. So I entered 'circular saw' into B&Q's search page. And a load of circular saws came up, although not an AEG, which I guess is just a product name - which B&Q don't carry.
I like B&Q, the staff are friendly and helpful and I can usually find what I want there. Wickes, OTOH, was not nice to me when I was looking for some special filler for a kitchen worktop. So I got it from B&Q instead.
Maybe you need to specify your search more?
Websites are never perfect but they mostly do try and help you to find what you want.
Which was ficticious. B-) Just to show an example of how the 3 clicks "rule" is not a particularly hard and fast one and long crumb trails are acceptable and easy to navigate provided they are logical.
Home > Plumbing > Spares > Washers > Taps > 1/2"
Is another crumb trail, not quite as logical, but still acceptable.
Yes, I have always thought so. In the early days I would go and look to see if they had an item and it would give me every item totally unconnected with my query. It only has about 5% of the stock they carry detailed in it. Hence I only look in B&Q if I am passing and have time.
I'd bought an AEG (well known brand name in power tools) saw from B&Q a few hours earlier.....
Whatever a customer may think about the B&Q staff is not going to help when searching the B&Q website. I tried to use the B&Q site years ago and gave up because it was so poor. I take it from the comments on this thread that things have not improved.
Judgements about a company will be made on such things. Before leaving my house to buy goods I try and confirm what products are sold by a store by doing an Internet search.This means that I never check B&Q for a product. Therefore I will not make a specific journey to buy at B&Q although, if I am in the area I will call in, because, as you say the staff are usually helpful.
I am sure that B&Q are very aware of the weaknesses of their website and as they seem to live with it, I see it as arrogance and lack of customer concern on their part.
I wonder if any B&Q staff are reading this thread and what their knowledge is of the web builders attempt to use customer feedback.
km
I've mentioned that their web site is useless to several B&Q staff - they all agreed.
The Company I worked for had a staff feedback system. I would hope a company the size of B&Q would have something similar.
If they do and the staff are saying what the customers say why is there a continuing problem?
There must be a Head of Department responsible for this who is prepared to say that the site is acceptable. If that is the case who is the ultimate Senior Manager who is prepared to accept what is clearly a very weak site? He/she is not doing their job properly in allowing the site managers to fail in their job.
Are B&Q's senior management known? Will look it up.
km
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