Catalog

Description

Provides a way for users to browse a catalog of items, make a selection, and validate the selection.

Context of Use

Applies to any site featuring a catalog of items, including e-commerce sites, news sites, portfolios, photography sites, and many more.

Task Flow

Users browsing for items of content (products, articles, or something else) traverse the catalog by following the three-step process of moving from a catalog to a gallery of items within that catalog wherein the user selects a specific item, and from the gallery to a content page wherein the user can decide if the item is indeed the item she wants.

Co-requisites

• Search

Related

• About Us
• » Shopping cart
• » Account management
• » Order management
• » Ecommerce

Where Used

• » Gap
• » Best Buy
• » NYTimes
• » Cancer.gov
• » Happy Cog

Elements

• Category page: shows categories of items (products, news articles, etc), each of which links to a gallery page (» example)
• Gallery page: shows a gallery of items in the corresponding category (list of articles, result set of products, etc.) (» example)
• Content page: shows content and related details for the selected item (e.g. a page about a pair of headphones might include a product description, user reviews, ratings, price, fulfillment info (shipping time, availability, etc.), images, etc. (see also: » Product page)
• » Guided/faceted links

Design Criteria

• Support exploration
• Expose the taxonomy