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"show more" UI suggestions
1. Dreamzzz does not show up in the browse sidebar under sets…but it does if you put Dreamzzz in the search bar.
2. Crocodile Car Set 71458 minifigures (Cooper, Jayden, Night Hunter, Snivel) don't appear on the season 1 minifigure page. Nor does:
Mateo with cape from 71461 Fantastical Tree House
Nightmare King from 71469 Shark Set
Grimspawn from 71456 Turtle Van
Dreamling Wizard from Village 40657
Mateo without cape or backpack from Cage Monster 71455
-- some of those missing figures appear in more than one set --
…aaand I'm not sure I've caught them all.
2. Crocodile Car Set 71458 minifigures (Cooper, Jayden, Night Hunter, Snivel) don't appear on the season 1 minifigure page. Nor does:
Mateo with cape from 71461 Fantastical Tree House
Nightmare King from 71469 Shark Set
Grimspawn from 71456 Turtle Van
Dreamling Wizard from Village 40657
Mateo without cape or backpack from Cage Monster 71455
-- some of those missing figures appear in more than one set --
…aaand I'm not sure I've caught them all.
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With the figures, if an item comes in multiple different sub-themed sets, it then isn't in any subtheme, so they're in the normal Dreamzzz minifigure category.
Here are some observations and comments. Speaking for myself.
Regarding Sets by Theme
After your above response I went looking for the "show more" link. It was not immediately apparent to me. It is also not immediately apparent that it is "show more SETS" as it is so far visually removed from the "sets" label and it extends the width of the column. It's not cognitively registering to me that it is "show more sets"…it just looks like it is "show more…whatever" and the whatever is Gear, Stickers, etc. which follows the above list. Perhaps if the "show more" was not in the blue bar…which visually/cognitively reads to me as a section head as opposed to a subsection continuation…and was labelled "Show More Sets…" it would be helpful. I know you have the little down arrow in the link to indicate there's more, but it's…well, I'm finding it inadequate and maybe outside the expected visual vernacular. I would expect "Show More…" (using ellipses) as just a plain old (maybe) underlined text link at the bottom of the list.
The choice of displaying sets by sales (and I assume this is sales on this site and not some other source of sales) seems to me to be self-defeating. Granted everybody does not think in the same way, but it is forever a mystery to me why things are listed here and elsewhere as "most relevant" or "top sellers" or other subjective criteria. For instance, this week over on lego.com in the Pick a Brick section, the default is Sort by Relevance and the first item shown is a blue Duplo dinosaur. How is that part relevant to…anything?
Before I digress too far:
If I do not know that things are displayed by annual sales (which is ambiguous…is that sales by quantity or sales by revenue?) and it is not explained somewhere right there where I'm looking…
[aside]…and I don't know what relevance BO sales has to me finding a set unless this is supposed to be a consideration that more frequent sales of a thing increases its relative relevance to someone looking for something…and now we're back to relevance…and somehow relevance makes things easier to find?…[/aside]
well…it just looks like the category I'm looking for does not exist. And if I can't find what I'm looking for I'm unable to buy it. And if I'm unable to buy it, presumably that skews the sales against the thing I'm looking for…and what I'm looking for gets relegated to the secret hidden list of "show more". So it's then a self-defeating premise, this listing by sales, isn't it?
I would want the list to be ordered in a manner that is obvious.
The BO visible list is not displayed by sales, but is found by sales and ordered alphabetically. Being listed alphabetically gives the impression that it is a complete list…as opposed to be sorted by sales or relevance or whatever where the list would be alphabetically jumbled. Finding things in an alphabetically jumbled list is worse and basically what I'm railing against in the arranged by "relevance" or "top sellers" scenarios. So good for BO to sort alphabetically.
If the visible list was not defined by sales and was purely alphabetical, it would be more cognitively implied, to me at least, that the list was truncated if it stopped at themes beginning with "G" and was then followed by a "Show More Sets…" link which was obviously visually different than the column subheads. It might also be cognitively helpful is the "show less" list was substantially shorter such that it appears obviously too short to be complete and that the "show more whatever" link appears without having to scroll to find it.
On a laptop screen "show more" isn't immediately visible once clicking LEGO Sets in the Categories column. So if I'm looking for a theme (Dreamzzz)…which should appear alphabetically at the top of the list…the "show more" link is not displaying. Cognitively Dreamzzz just registers to me as *not being there*. While "show more" exists, it does not exist where I can see it and scrolling is required to discover its existence. My thought isn't to scroll around and look for a "show more" link. My thought is "it's not here". Then I go ahead and write a post and here we are.
If the immediately visible list was reduced to 20 items and the "show more" link appeared on screen, obvious, without needing to scroll I think it would likely resolve the issue, at least for me.
I get the whole "reduce list size" and the need to deliver the page off the server efficiently and all that. With that in mind, this issue of showing everything or part of everything in a sidebar is only going to get worse with LEGO releasing new themes and "seasons" every three months, and I suggest that the current design paradigm is on the verge of becoming …inefficient? …cumbersome? …not optimal?
I do not know if BO has single pages dedicated to "Sets by Theme" and "Minifigures by Theme" and so on, but at the moment I'm not going to go hunting for them. However pages like these I think I would find more useful than a dropdown that is incomplete and alphabetical followed by another initially hidden dropdown that is also incomplete and alphabetical.
Regarding Minifigures
I'm not sure I'm completely grokking your statement. By my count Season 1 of Dreamzzz has at least 33 distinct minifigures and BO is listing 22. BO lists 32 figures for Season 2 and another 3 figures as magazine gifts. So the subsection total is 57 figures and the main section count is 67.
Is the subsection inclusion criteria that if a figure appears in Season 1 and in Season 2 that it is listed in neither? Why wouldn't the figure just be listed in both Seasons 1 and 2? Or is this another "trying to reduce the output" thing? If so, okay, but you need to be aware this methodology is making things either difficult to find or unfindable.
This is my experience and thoughts and comments. Maybe some others will read the thread and offer their thoughts. The takeaway for you should be this: if people can't find things (and easily) people can't buy them and they will go elsewhere to do so.
Finally, it is always appreciated that you do take the time to read and consider these things.
Maybe we could have a "popular" section with 10 at the top, then the rest of the A-Z list and a show more.
With minifigure themes, and themes in general. Some items are in the parent theme only (Dreamzzz) and some are in the parent theme, and a subtheme (Season 1). But I do understand this is confusing for something like Season 1/2 where there is crossover. So again, I will need to have a think.
As the developer, it all seems obvious to me, because I wrote it. So it's useful to have user feedback on how it can be confusing.
Popular. Well I might be the one guy wanting to scroll past Star Wars to get to Galidor, so that may be a solution that is effective for some but not for all. Going with a top ten… seems like that's the same thing you're doing now, but shortened. And it may work if it is top ten and then Show More with everything A-Z after that. I don't quite get why you would need a show more if you've already shown A-Z, but maybe I'm reading your sentence incorrectly.
If it were a popup list, one could click to pop up, then type "sta" and get quickly to star wars. But scrolling those damned popup lists is difficult in another way. And that's probably not phone friendly. What's phone friendly? Having an A-B-C-D…then each of those opens to reveal themes beginning with that letter?
I don't know the solution, or a solution that works within the confines of what's already programmed, or, you know, whatever. I've offered suggestions but they are definitely one-man's user-interface on a computer (not a phone) efficiency proclivities.
Like you say, it's going to require a think. Probably a long think. But thanks for be willing to give it a think.
Yeah, Sergio, I think you're potentially in the right neighborhood.