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April 8, 2004 12:01 AM
Broken: Five Star Billiards product list
Chris Fralic sends us a pointer to the Product Quick Links page of the Five Star Billiards, Inc. website. This page lists hundreds of products in no discernable order. It should definitely not be called the "Quick Links" page. Chris adds, "It's almost a thing of beauty - there are patterns emerging in this sea of links..."
If you know the model number, you just use the search box, you don't look at an unreadable page and use your browser's find function. I'm with the original poster.
I would agree with the other comments that this isn't a broken page. I would find this quite handy to have if I was looking for a particular item, and just use the Ctrl-F key to search for it. I would feel more confident that the search would be successful than if I was typing it into a blank search box.
I think this page is very broken for the average web user/billiards player. I would agree with the above posts if I were to agree that the the advanced billiards player is an advanced web user. But that *might* be a stretch. I think we take too much for granted in that area.
As the site operator, if you are comfortable with targeting only those users who know exactly what model number they are looking for, then, "it's all golden". But you could accomodate novice and expert billiards players alike with a much more user friendly browsing layout.
Ctrl+F is not a average key stroke. Most folks don't even know about Ctrl+C Ctrl+V.
I don't think this is what Creative Good had in mind by "intelligent inconsistency". :o)
Making a website idiot-proof means idiots appreciate the simpleness of the page. Also, I think, non-idiots. In either case, giving sub-catagories makes the page simpler, easier to manuever, and makes more sense then thousands of closely spaced links all stuck together.
Maybe they're trying to make it so confusing to shop online that you're forced to use their 1-800 #, where the operator can upsell you to an automatic billiard ball polisher, or cue stick wax, or something.
I have to say that this page is pretty amazing. Take a picture (at highest resolution possible), print at 8'x8', hang it on the wall and call it art.
Also amusing...scroll this page up and down several times and watch the letters run together in an interesting animation.
There are all sorts of amusing uses for this page...
Obviously, this page is made strictly for search. If you click on any of the links above, you are transferred to a database driven site.
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Previous: Elevator up button | Main | Next: Salon Premium signup (fixed!)
I bet if you're a billiards fanatic something like this is quite handy. If you know what model number you're looking for or whatever, you can just Command-F or Control-F and everything's golden. The site has a normal search box and lots of other ways to navigate the content, too. So I'd say this isn't really all that broken.
Posted by: brian w at April 8, 2004 12:44 AM