Missing Features

An IT Manager is expertly familiar with the driver download pages of various technology vendors. It’s very sad — you quickly realize — how bad driver download sites are, and how clueless so many companies are.

Take probably the worst driver download site around: Canon USA support.

The problem here is a wider web problem: the problem of false categories. Take a look at how Canon breaks up it’s consumer products. You can just imagine the board room arguments about which categories are right for which products, and the satisfaction that the team has when the categories are named.

So what’s the problem with using categories? People don’t think in your categories. They don’t really think in any categories, really. When a consumer buys a printer and a scanner in one unit, he doesn’t think “wow, what a great multifunction USB device I just purchased!”.

We will call this missing features axiom 1: If your company categorizes something, it’s wrong.

If you use categories on your site you are forcing your user to make unnatural thoughts about what category to which they would assign the device. And the user tends to be wrong think differently than you nearly all of the time. And if you happen to not be a native to the United States, you’re in even more trouble.

So how should a driver page be designed? It’s pretty easy really:

• List all of your products in alphabetical order by most recognized name of the product (this includes all of the old products too);
• Design for readability, above all else; and,
• Have a great search function (if you company doesn’t use a Google Search Appliance, then your company has crappy search).

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