dis[PLACE]ment architecture

Mr. Vaio R.I.P. 2002-2006

I have been a few days behind in my blogging, in no small part to the death of my faithful old laptop. Nothing brightens the grad student's day more than a loud beep, a slow whir, and a smell reminiscent of burnt hair emenating from one's daily companion of four years. And so I was off on my quest to replace this indispensable tool. I'll apologize to Tim and Matt in advance - I know they are probably tired of hearing my moaning on this subject, but I found the process of selcting a new laptop tied closely to our discussions in studio.

Why?

Because, I found out, that I, to some small extent, am a "Master of the YOUniverse." Hopefully this doen't mean that I am one of those people Professor Hecker mentioned should be lined up and shot. But it does mean that I found myself in a market for a product for which good design an a good process for purchasing is essential. In perusing the local retail outlets greater Anderson had to offer, I was sorely dissapointed, not just by the design of so many of the computers, but by how few options were available. Among the four stores I visited, I essentially found the same products at each store. The problem wasn't a lack of variety of brands or models, it was just that all off those models essentially offered the same thing - HUGE hard drives, flimsy construction, and exstensive gimmicks with woefully-underpowed graphics cards. Anything else was incredibly overpriced. Sure, they are great for folks who only use their computers to download vast amounts of illegal music or store millions of photos to post on Facebook or Myspace or whatever, but a possible liability for anyone who will be using their computer for any sort of graphics-intensive programs. It appears that the brick-and-mortar retail stores were geared almost completely to impulse buyers. Most of the computers were flashy, excessively flimsy (I'm looking at you, Compaq), and overpriced for what they were. To me, a sturdy chassis means as mush or more than actual processing power - after all, I tote one of these things around every single day. Some were considerably better constructed (and no more expensive), and they served to guide me in investigating what the online world had to offer.

And so I became, for a few nights anyway, a "Master of the YOUniverse." I did a lot of research and became very familiar with the ups and downs of the buyer interfaces of three manufacturers offering customizable computers - Dell, Toshiba, and Sony. I would suggest that folks in the studio might want to look at the sites as we are thinking about what it means for a product to be mass-customizable.

The Dell site (www.dell.com) offered a very flashy selection interface with a bevy of options - to the point where it definitely became information overload. Of course, most of the options were ridiculous and obvious price-inflators- does anyone really need a 5-year warranty for a product that will probably be obsolete in less than 1? Why do I need to wade through a selection of over-priced backbacks? Didn't I come here for a computer? Do I need every page to tell me how I can "listen to my favorite songs" while I have to pick through the entire website just to figure out if the damn thing will fit in my existing laptop bag? There's no doubt though, that the Dell site is a Master of the YOUniverse's dream - the customization options are almost endless.

Sony's (www.sonystyle.com) and Toshiba's (www.toshibadirect) websites offer far fewer customization options, but offer a wider selection of basic laptop models to build upon. The sites are both less flashy than Dell's (with Toshiba's being downright utilitarian - think of the internet circa 1997), but require the consumer to wade through a good many different pages to see all the models available. However, upon selecting a model to build upon, customization is very easy - a single page let's one see an select every available option.

This all brings us to the question of the buyer's interface with the product selection - something all of us will have to think about as we develop and consider the properties of our micro-houses. Do we want a few models for which customization is almost endless, or should the products be more specialized with fewer available options? What is the best way to present this to the customer in a way that balances the need for communicating a lot of information, while trying to present this information in as direct a way as possible?

Oh - and if you want to know which product I selected, it was the Sony. It cost the least for what I wanted. So maybe everything I just talked about got tossed right out the door.

posted by clintor @ 1:24 PM