Facets For Products Is Released! Improved Navigation Just In Time For The Holiday

Discussion in 'Official Announcements' started by Andrewsimonthomas, Nov 15, 2016.

  1. glehn
    glehn Well-Known Member
    @imdaveho Dave, what will be the process to suggest facets options? I still miss some important categories like trainer aircraft in miniatures. I can' t fit them in any of the existing options. And for vehicles there is a very limited list of countries to select from. Again, I can't find a place to fit the Brazilian manufactured vehicles I have in my shop.
    Maybe there should be an "other" option under every facet to catch everything that could not be categorized in any of the available options?
     
  2. stonysmith
    stonysmith Well-Known Member Moderator
    Thanks!
     
  3. stonysmith
    stonysmith Well-Known Member Moderator
    I think the idea was just don't select any one of the options.. by default that means "other".
     
  4. imdaveho
    imdaveho Shapeways Employee Product Team
    @glehn please comment here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/158y5hu8rODIC5XewMZFUfs7xRDXReY4vP6q5gZ6fSno/edit?usp=sharing

    and note that there will be some things that will be broadly tackled by facets and some thing that will be discoverable either by improvements with search or tags. While we have added new things based on feedback thus far, there may be circumstance where we decide certain suggestions will be better addressed by something else.

    If you think about it, categories (taxonomy), facets, tags, and search all have to deal with "discovery", so we're taking a holistic approach to make sure they work together for maximum effectiveness.
     
  5. Carlos2k10
    Carlos2k10 Well-Known Member
    My two cents,

    I did provide feedback in the spreadsheet and it is great to see some of my suggestions there,
    thanks for taking it into account.

    Speaking specifically of the aircraft category, I need to note that some of the ones that were not added might be a useful addition, on Era we definitely need the cold war as I stated in the spreadsheet there are plenty of types
    that were active during that period that were not involved in any conflicts.

    Most of my modern/Vietnam war/Korean war models will end up there as they were not
    used in any of those conflicts.

    And I have to back Glen's proposal of a trainer facet, I have just one model that might fall in that category
    myself but there are plenty of them in other shops.

    Now onto the Tabletop and Wargaming category, Battetech scale is 1/285 (mostly) so 1/285 - 6mm
    needs to be added as facet.

    Also the Other facet is badly needed as all the models that do not fall under the standard facets get
    lost into oblivion. Stony's point is good but unfortunately not selecting any facet means that you will get
    all models without facets plus all model with facets.

    Regards
     
  6. UtorCase
    UtorCase Well-Known Member
    As stony mentioned before, how can we set facets via the API?

    Also, why doesn't Shapeways use the existing tags as facets? You could mark certain tags as Shapeways select tags or sg elevated.

    The info is already there via tags, and facets are a way to browse. Don't confuse and mistify sg simple :)

    PS: Shapeways will face an SEO nightmare if people will be entering the same info to tags and facets... Google will slaughter the site because of duplicate content.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2016
  7. Andrewsimonthomas
    Andrewsimonthomas Well-Known Member
    @UtorCase you can now use your csv to set it up, which should help.

    We did pull info from tags but may not have surfaced every single facet possibility if there were only one or two items for that tag, so to only show shoppers facets when there are enough options to browse. Keep in mind this is only our first pass, we're adding more regularly
     
  8. UtorCase
    UtorCase Well-Known Member
    Thx Andrew :) So, if you stick with tags, and use some of them as SW select tags used in faceting, then not much is needed from the developers as tags can already be set via the API.


    Feedback on UI: The current faceting seems to be broken as you can select combos where there are no results. The purpose of faceting should be to drill down, and grey out options that lead to no results...
     
  9. Roolz
    Roolz Well-Known Member
    Some feedback regarding the Boardgame Category facets.
    To put it mildly, it's highly perfectible...

    1- "Compatible with - Space Frontier". This must be a joke.

    Space Frontier is a super-obscure game.

    Actually there are two games called Space Frontier. Both have an entry on boardgamegeek.com, and are marked as owned by a whooping 4 BGG users. 4 users on about 1.2 Million registered. I can't figure why Space Frontier is listed along Catan, Magic or Axis and Allies. Catan alone is marked as owned by 85000+ BGG users.
    You cannot list the top 100 board games, but please try to list some that are at least a tiny bit famous.
    You can find a somewhat relevant ranking of popular boardgames here.

    2- "Game pieces". Come on, it's simply useless.

    Basically, almost everything is a game piece.

    In a nutshell, here are the 4 main boardgame component types :
    - Tokens : These are game pieces of various shapes, typically stylized.
    - Counters : These are game pieces specifically used to count points. Dials, numbered tokens, etc.
    - Miniatures : Most recent successful boardgames come with miniatures. And I'm not talking about games like Warhammer or Battletech (these ones are now in the "Tabletop-Wargaming" category. By the way, wargames are actually a subset of boardgames but that's another story).
    - Gaming accessories : These are accessories that are used with a game, but not "in" the game. Such as token trays, dice towers, dice trays, organizers, etc. Contary to the 3 types above, accessories are not game pieces.
     
  10. Andrewsimonthomas
    Andrewsimonthomas Well-Known Member
    Hey @Roolz the facets we made came directly from shopowners like yourself tagged to their products. As more models for more popular games get added we'll continue to update the facet options
     
  11. MrNibbles
    MrNibbles Well-Known Member
    As the facet options change/update how do we know if categories/facets/uses we have selected need to change or have been changed for us by by running batch job updates? This thing seems rife for needing a lot of updating and maintenance over time whereas tags can cover things pretty well right from the start (not that I have kept up with tagging either :(). Just thought I would ask before reviewing and updating every product in my shop.
     
  12. Roolz
    Roolz Well-Known Member
    I get it, @Andrewsimonthomas.

    Anyone can upload a zillion models with "whatever tag". Doesn't mean said tag is relevant.

    I just checked the boardgames "most popular" default page:
    - There are 56 models shown (including the 4 Shapeways picks on top)
    - 0 have the tag "game piece".
    - 0 have the tag "space frontier".

    So I'm wondering, where do the "game piece" and "space frontier" facets come from?

    PS :
    On the 56 "most popular" models, 16 are mine. That's 28%. Maybe it doesn't mean anything, but maybe it suggests that I know a tiny little bit about boardgaming. So you might consider my previous message. Or not :).
     
  13. UtorCase
    UtorCase Well-Known Member
    Good point, some sites surface tags as facets where a lot of users set the same tag. Perhaps some tags policy should be enforced, eg single word tags if you want them to appear in faceting etc.
     
  14. woody64
    woody64 Well-Known Member
    Today I tried to take a look on the marketplace to see how many designers have set facets yet.

    When I jump to "figures" I can't find "1:64 S" as scale option. Also when narrowing down to "soldiers".

    But when searching through the "soldiers" section I can find one of my items having this scale.
    https://www.shapeways.com/product/LCPPLVUTD/cufflinks?optionId=43664013&li=marketplace

    Yes, it's currently misplaced but the scale should be visible. Or do I miss something?
     
  15. RayP1949
    RayP1949 Member
    I have just downloaded my CSV file to check what facets have been allocated by Shapeways to my models.

    Underwhelmed, many that have been set just don't make sense, items with multiple possible scales have been given a random scale, items that are obviously railway related have been placed in the Scenery subcategory which is not how a railway modeller would think, e.g. signals are railway infrastructure not scenery.

    I have a lot of fixing to do but some things I can't put where I want to because there isn't an appropriate facet in the subcategory, e.g. Signals.

    Also, why are Signals and Signs in the same facet (subcategory Scenery), they are totally different?
     
  16. Andrewsimonthomas
    Andrewsimonthomas Well-Known Member
    @Roolz this is why your feedback is vital so we can keep improving. Your expertise is totally necessary to make this work and we ask that you keep it coming. You can also add comments into this doc which is where we're going to be working from when we make changes.
     
  17. Roolz
    Roolz Well-Known Member
    I'll sure take a look and add comments. Thanks.

    Edit: Done.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2016
    Andrewsimonthomas likes this.
  18. Model_Monkey
    Model_Monkey Well-Known Member
    CSV! Love it!
     
    MitchellJetten likes this.
  19. Model_Monkey
    Model_Monkey Well-Known Member
    The CSV tool allowed me update and add facets to over 700 products in just minutes. Excellent!

    Thank you!

    If not too late, please consider adding two scales to the list of scale options:
    1:125 (scale used by Heller for model airliners and Revell for model submarines and Lindberg for model ships)
    1:192 (scale popular for model ships, it is the equivalent of 1/16 inch = 1 foot)

    Thanks again!