Comparison and argument settling (or starting) tool

[jerrykew]

Hi, I have built a tool to answer my own car questions, e.g. what car has an ncap rating higher than 6, will tow two tons plus, and has an mpg better than 40 for example, also to build 'stables' of cars (tasty cars, reality cars, advice for friends) and to be able to rate them.


try this link for a completed grid, you can make them up and then publish them to settle/start arguments!

Enjoy - Jerry
www.dealdna.com/grid.cfm?gridkey=25b5567c

[jerrykew]

BTW, in build ing this, I discovered there are over 700 CURRENT models in the British Market, in over 5000 Editions, I found that astonishing. It is no wonder that kids today dont recognise every car they see, when I was a kid we could recognise every single current car.

Jerry

[richb]

Had a quick look but it all seems too complicated by half! Anyway all I can see are Ferraris, Lambos and Aston DB9s?

[jerrykew]

That's because that is what I put in that grid, you can compare any of 200 features on 5000 cars, I just put in the Lambos etc to illustrate...

If you go to www.dealdna.com/ (ie, the entrance) you can try the search...

Jerry

[richb]

Ah ha!!!

[kkmfo]

well done.
to be completely frank, you have set about doing something very clever and it must have taken a huge amount of work, but the website is absolutely rubbish - impossible to use and looks pretty bad as well.

sorry to be harsh, but hope that honest criticism helps !

[jerrykew]

>kkmfo well done.
>to be completely frank, you have set about doing something very clever and it must have taken a >huge amount of work, but the website is absolutely rubbish - impossible to use and looks pretty >bad as well.
>
>sorry to be harsh, but hope that honest criticism helps

Gosh, thank you for that.

Fortunately I have been in receipt of plenty of *constructive* criticism, so it is worth trying www.dealdna.com, or for example, check out the grid (follows) of the land rover range (made by a user in 2 minutes flat)

www.dealdna.com/grid.cfm?gridkey=4fe8daaf

Jerry

[SS HSV]

Jerry it is a clever tool but its too complicated/fidly so I lost patience with it straight away.

I found the layout non-user friendly, and scroll-bars are neeeded because there if too much data on each page. When you use the scroll-bars there are no end stops so the page just displays large amounts of whitespace which makes the experience appear very unfinished. Can you not give the option for the user to display the tables according to their desktop resolution or by providing a text/table size tool? I found my experience of using it was like viewing the data through a porthole

When you're in a couple of pages you are presented with a 'sea of click boxes' for comparison - I failed to see a 'de-select all' or 'select all' option; is there one? I started to uncheck a few boxes but gave up because it would have taken me twenty minutes just to un-check the boxes which were not required

Maybe you could add 'select all' and 'de-select all' for each sub category?

I would ask you which market you are aiming at? If you are going for the end buyer, I would think that this needs to be an easy to use exciting and fun experience. I say this because people who are excited about buying their car/dream car want to see sexy pictures together with hard facts and not just lots of check-boxes. Maybe you could spruce it up a bit; I thought that the plain white background was too plain, how about some texture of even a very light watermark? The grid-like dots drive me crazy...

Are you are aiming this tool at Market research companies, then I presume you could then sell the training to go with it? I would think that you would have a better success here, but that's just my opinion.

I think you are trying to accomplish the undo-able! There is such a huge array of data to compare, you will be stretching the boundaries of full cross-refence ability against simplicity and user enjoyment. I am however, trying to provide you with honest feedback and not nailing your idea into the floor.

Best of luck with it anyhow

[jerrykew]

Hi, thank you VERY much for excellent feedback.

I have spent the last couple of weeks seriously tidying it, and trying to simplify it WITHOUT losing the richness of the data. There has always been a multi select/deselect option, however, your note clarifies that it probably wasn't clear enough.

I shall be launching the updated verion in a couple of days and will drop a note here, but, once again, thank you for the feedback.

best regards

Jerry

[jerrykew]

We decided to roll out today... http://www.dealdna.com for the latest version, here's fingers crossed!

Thanks for the feedback

Jerry

[jerrykew]

Thank you all again for the feedback. We have now built a greatly simplified search (press basic on the home page), added sample grids,(send me your own to add [e-mail]), and now you can send yourself a spreadsheet of all of the facts for all of the cars you have selected, please keep the feedback coming, it has helped us keep our feet on the ground.

all the best

Jerry

http://www.dealdna.com