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Manufacturer Best & Worst Web Sites
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| Topic: | Manufacturer Best & Worst Web Sites This thread has 21 replies. Displaying posts 1 through 15. |
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| Post 1 made on Thursday May 27, 2004 at 01:14 |
QQQ Super Member |
Joined:
Posts: | January 2002
4,806 |
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Awards based on:
1. Easy to find the info you want.
2. All the info needed to determine if a product is appropriate for a project including:
A. ALL relevant specifications (dimensions, inputs etc....
C. CAD drawings.
3. Manuals online
And the winners are:
1. Crestron (the best bar none)
2. Middle Atlantic Products
3. Denon
4. Xantech
The losers are too many to name but special awards go to
1. Just about every big company
2. Panasonic (see above)
3. AMX (an abortion)
Your nominations? I'm sure there's many I'm missing.
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| Post 2 made on Thursday May 27, 2004 at 07:03 |
Theaterworks Founding Member |
Joined:
Posts: | April 2002
1,898 |
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I'll add Sony's Dealer Network site to the bad list. Whatta mess.....
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Carpe diem! |
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| Post 3 made on Thursday May 27, 2004 at 07:57 |
deb1919 Founding Member |
Joined:
Posts: | September 2001
344 |
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A.D.A. just can't get any consistency to their dealer section. Some documents there, some not, some in this format, some in that...
Kudos go to Chief Manufacturing, NEC Visual Systems, ReQuest, Crutchfield (not a manufacturer, I know, but a great resource for photos & features).
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| Post 4 made on Thursday May 27, 2004 at 08:33 |
Impaqt RC Moderator |
Joined:
Posts: | October 2002
6,233 |
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I find AMX's website as good if not better than Crestrons. All the information you require is easily and readily available.
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| Post 5 made on Thursday May 27, 2004 at 09:47 |
GotGame Super Member |
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Posts: | February 2002
4,022 |
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The Vantage site is wonderful for both Consumers and Dealers. Everything is easy to get to and I have had No problems with DL at any time.
The Russound Website is easy to navigate and look at product. It is improving all the time with More pdf files.
The AMX site is Okay if you have navigated it a few times. It is in serious need of a facelift.
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I may be schizophrenic, but at least I have each other. |
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| OP | Post 6 made on Thursday May 27, 2004 at 11:38 |
QQQ Super Member |
Joined:
Posts: | January 2002
4,806 |
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I just knew Impaqt would defend AMX's web site :-). Sorry, it's as poorly designed as they get. Let's assume you are a consumer and want to look at their *PRODUCTS*.
1. Go to the main page and look for the "Products" tab. Oops! There isn't one. There is a "new products" tab but one could assume that's just press releases about new products.
2. So I click on the link that says "consumers".
3. Hm, where to go, where to go. Still no "products" link. So I click on the link that says "AMX solutions". Oops! That's where I'm already at (the "consumers" link took me to the "solutions" page, unbeknownst to me). So now I see several more links that have NOTHING to do with PRODUCTS.
4. So I click on "residential". Same bullsh*t. NO link for products! But I do get a COMPLETELY USELESS "drag bar" that allows me to drag a couple of stupid pictures across the screen.
The site breaks every rule of good navigation. It is what I would use to teach a class on how NOT to design a web site.
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| OP | Post 7 made on Thursday May 27, 2004 at 11:52 |
QQQ Super Member |
Joined:
Posts: | January 2002
4,806 |
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OK, now let's assume I new that clicking on the "new products" section on the main page would also allow me to find existing products.
1. I click on "new products".
2. Now I'm presented with some confusing looking (yes, I can figure it out, but let's suppose I'm not a techno geek) expanding menus. So I click on "product catalog".
3. It "expands" to give me 6 more options. So I click on the "Netlinx" option.
4. Guess what! Netlinx expands to give me 5 more options. So I click on the "user interfaces" option. User Interfaces expands to give me 3 more options.
5. I click on the "wired interfaces" option. Wired intefaces expands to give me 6 more options!
6. I click on the "flush mount" options. Flush mount expands to give me 3 more options!
7. I click on the "medium 6" - 10" options. Now I jump to a page with a bunch of non-descript model numbers! No picture! No anything! Just a bunch of fricken model numbers.
8. So I click on EX1-1MB. Oops! Thats memory for touchscreens. So I click on one of the AX series and at last I've gotten to a useful products page that has a picture with access to specs and manuals etc.
By this point most people that weren't AMX dealers would have given up and be visiting another web site. And even if someone made it this far, there is absolutely no way to easily see what products are in a category etc.
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| OP | Post 8 made on Thursday May 27, 2004 at 17:47 |
QQQ Super Member |
Joined:
Posts: | January 2002
4,806 |
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I would really like to see some more suggestions, especially for the good sites.
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| Post 9 made on Thursday May 27, 2004 at 18:01 |
Fred Harding Super Member |
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Posts: | October 2001
3,460 |
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Peerlessindustries.com is nice, once you know how it works.
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On the West Coast of Wisconsin |
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| Post 10 made on Friday May 28, 2004 at 00:41 |
Impaqt RC Moderator |
Joined:
Posts: | October 2002
6,233 |
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OK, I'll give ya the scrolling menus... But in my book, that beats the goofy mouse over drop down menus any day....
And the "Overview" catagor (Just 2 clicks in) gets you the the product info much quicker...
From your description I wondered if Crestron updated their site...
Open up the main page...
Oh, A Products Mouse-Over expanding menu! Great! Opps... 8 Options and Header..... Lets Try Residential.... Whoa.... Quick Jump to a Zillion Nondescript model numbers...... and...... 20! Different Categories! Uh Oh....... Lets try Control Panels and Keypads... Nice Page of Links with a little discription of what they are... Still No Pictures....... and I dont see anything a average customer would call a Control Panel... Just Button Remotes.... --BACK-- Oh.. Down on the Bottom... TOuchpanels....... Oh Gee.. The first thing I see is Accesories... Breif Discriptions and Still No Pictures....... Whoop-di-doo.. scroll scroll scroll..... Ah Iys Touchpanels... Finally.... ANd Yes, Lots of Good Information...........
Now... The above doesnt bother me too much because I used to have to deal with it every day..... But scrolling through pages is significantly more time consuming than clicking through AMX's Nav Bars.
I can get to where I need to go on one page.
The Point of my ramblings is this....
Neither Company has what I would consider a "Consumer Friendly" site. You drink the Crestron Kool-Aid so anything associated with Crestron is the second coming....
I however know AMX has superior products. Dealing with a Little akward-ness is not a big deal, I can get all the Information I need in seconds.
You want a bad site???? Lutrons HWI Support site... Holy cow.... Now thats bad.......... But hey... all the info is there if you know where to find it.
This message was edited by Impaqt on 05/28/04 19:48.
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| Post 11 made on Friday May 28, 2004 at 01:03 |
Late Night Bill Long Time Member |
Joined:
Posts: | February 2004
495 |
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I would have to nominate Sony's entire site (not just dealer section) for the worst and most useless website ever in the big company catagory. If you are looking for information on a specific model, your best bet is it hit Google, and follow the link into Sony from there. I have found many pages that have no apparent way to get to them fromt he top of sony.com Dolby has a decent page: [Link: dolby.com]Graphically nice, easy to figure out what they do (as if you didn't already know), links from the top page to get you to real information, no BS openning animation, multi-lingual, search engine that works, good looking people. A+ in my book! And speaking of good looking people, does anyone else like the HDMI girl? Dark, Gothic, looks mean, in a sexy kind of way... http://www.hdmi.org/
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| Post 12 made on Friday May 28, 2004 at 14:46 |
Dawn Gordon Luks Founding Member |
Joined:
Posts: | September 2001
1,178 |
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The Fujitsu Plasmavision site. Great dimensioning drawings.
Dawn
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| Post 13 made on Saturday May 29, 2004 at 16:59 |
Anthony Ultimate Member |
Joined:
Posts: | May 2001
28,874 |
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Yamaha, Epson +
Sony= most useless site ever
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| Post 14 made on Saturday May 29, 2004 at 17:49 |
Dean Roddey Senior Member |
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Posts: | May 2004
1,009 |
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| OP | Post 15 made on Saturday May 29, 2004 at 17:52 |
QQQ Super Member |
Joined:
Posts: | January 2002
4,806 |
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Dean, I'm going to do something here that may shock you. I'm going to nominate your site as one of the best sites for offering support for your users and an EXCELLENT help manual/tutorial (the site itself could use some work though). www.charmedquark.comThis message was edited by QQQ on 05/29/04 22:48.
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