Blasselflargin Home Depot web site search function #$%@!!

[Brad Johnson]

I'm doing another room in the house and wanted to double check-that part numbers so I can get the same outlets/switched I recently used in a bedroom redo.  Using the receipt from Home Depot, I could NOT get their web site to take the part number.  Nada.  Nuthin.  I figured out enought to know that the item number printed on the receipt is the UPC code, and I was entering it EXACTLY as it was printed on the receipt.  Multiple numbers, multple tries.

Knowing their web site is ultra-picky and will only take exact spelling (it will not do a description search of partial character strings of any kind), on a whim I inserted a dash between the first a second 6-character number series.

It worked. 

*Sigh* You'ld think they'd have brains enough to realize that anyone searching parts from a product code, especially one right of of THEIR FRIGGIN' RECEIPT, is likely going to enter the number just as it appears on THEIR FRIGGIN' RECEIPT!!  Since their is no dash in the number on THEIR FRIGGIN' RECEIPT it only occured to me to enter it after I have given up and was google searching of the products, seeing the dash in a lot of other vendors UPS fields. 

The mystery dash is just a frustrating example of people having severe cranio-rectal inversion when it comes to designing a supposedly "helpful" website.

Brad

[vaskidmark]

You'ld think they'd have brains enough to realize

There's your problem, right there.

Often ask the person uttering "You'd think" if they had a note from their Momma giving them permission to do that.  Turns out mos don't.

stay safe.

[Gowen]

You have to realize that all websites are made by web developers.  The site isn't the problem, the site does exactly what it was programmed to do.  The web developers are the problem.  Given the examples we have on this forum, are you surprised their site sucks?




j/k

[RevDisk]

You have to realize that all websites are made by web developers.  The site isn't the problem, the site does exactly what it was programmed to do.  The web developers are the problem.  Given the examples we have on this forum, are you surprised their site sucks?

j/k

I was dealing with one the other day.  Guy (who I believe was paid) was doing a site for a band.  He gave me a zip.  Looked at it prior to uploading.  Free web template.   Then he got upset that my server was locked down so that he couldn't edit the template through wordpress.  The end result looks pretty (in only a handful of specific browsers.  Not so much in certain ones).  Oh, also forgot to give me a list of plugins that he needed. 


Just some advice to web designers who suck:

- Build a test environment.  Bloody use it for testing.  Production environment is not your test server.
- Check your work on something other than your favorite browser.  Or use valid XHTML code.
- Check your dependencies on your production environment
- WRITE A BLOODY FRIGGIN SCRIPT TO CHECK YOUR DEPENDENCIES.
- Use some logic in your file structure and naming convention

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

its part of the home depot experience.  says a former installer for them.  lowes is just as bad.  but they have a racket

[Boomhauer]

"The mystery dash is just a frustrating example of people having severe cranio-rectal inversion when it comes to designing a supposedly "helpful" website.
"

It comes from programs and websites that are written by programmers/web designers who design it the way they think. That's doesn't mean they don't know what they are doing, they just don't make the website/program as user friendly as it could be because the way they do it is very logical to them.

Case in point our reservation system at work, for reserving campsites. It's clunky, difficult to use, and plain out annoying. A good example is that you cannot switch dates and sites for a customer in one move...you have to change either the date or site first and then go back and find the reservation again and take care of the second part.

Or like the jobs at various companies websites I have been applying for over the past couple of weeks. The job part of the websites are typically clunky, have redundant features, and aren't laid out in the most sensible pattern. They also tend to have performance problems.

[KD5NRH]

- Build a test environment.  Bloody use it for testing.  Production environment is not your test server.

This requires a few assumptions that aren't necessarily valid these days: first, that the hosting company can even tell you all the versions of stuff that they're running so you can build a comparable test environment; second, that they won't change these without notifying you, rendering your testing moot; and third, that they even provide properly for you simply moving a file tree over to the production environment from your test server at home, rather than making you do it all through their "state of the art, user-friendly" web-based interface.

[KD5NRH]

Knowing their web site is ultra-picky and will only take exact spelling (it will not do a description search of partial character strings of any kind),

Impressive; they must have gone out of their way to make it that much of a PITA.

on a whim I inserted a dash between the first a second 6-character number series.

Now that's just plain frickin' stupid; there's no reason any search function looking through a database of formatted numbers shouldn't be able to strip all formatting from both the query string and the database field for the comparison.  An initial search for a truly identical match is fine, but on an empty result from that, searching again and ignoring the formatting should be automatic.

[Waitone]

I work in an environment where graphic designers rule the roost.  Great graphics, pretty pages, and useless as tits on a lawnmower.  A website is a tool to be used for the benefit of the customer.  It is not a place for designers (whatever the stripe) to get their rocks off. 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

the joys i had with sysco's online ordering system were grand. over 10 k items and categorized by folks without a clue sometimes you had to just scroll line by line

[Scout26]

I also hate HD's website.

I'm a Cub Scout den leader.  One of the things the boys have to do each year is build something with wood.  I know that HD offers a Free Kid's simple wood working project once a month.  I just needed to find the date/times that they offered this so that I put out the word to the other parents that "Hey, show up at Home Depot on X date at Y time and the boys can build a (simple wood project) and they'll earn their woodworking badge/pin."   You think that would be easy to find on their website.   Nope.  Unless you type in "Kids Workshops" exactly into the search box, forget it.  I spent over an hour trying different words/phrases, before I gave up and called their 800 number to get the magic phrase. 

I sent an e-mail to other den leaders with the 'magic phrase' so that they knew who to get the dates/times for their dens.

I have to go back and look at it each time I go to HD's website to find out about the workshops.

[Doggy Daddy]

its part of the home depot experience.  says a former installer for them.  lowes is just as bad.  but they have a racket

I thought the "Home Depot Experience"® was just getting to the end of an aisle as they put up the %$@# accordian barricade so you have to backtrack the way you came to get to the next aisle over.

Either that, or not being able to find someone to measure off and cut a length of rope, so you cut it yourself and take it to the cashier who then has to call the associate from the rope department to come get it and go measure and price it.  While they're gone you complain to the cashier about how you tried to find the rope associate in the rope department, but couldn't.  The cashiers love that.

DD

[Hawkmoon]

I work in an environment where graphic designers rule the roost.  Great graphics, pretty pages, and useless as tits on a lawnmower.  A website is a tool to be used for the benefit of the customer.  It is not a place for designers (whatever the stripe) to get their rocks off. 

Now THAT is blasphemy.

Everyone knows that end users don't count, and that web sites are developed only so the designers can show off ALL the latest and greatest flash animations and other tools and toys available ... usually all on the opening page of the site.

Good example is Nighthawk Customs, the 1911 pistol maker. They make decent (if overpriced) 1911s. I do NOT have time to deal with their web site, so I will never buy a Nighthawk Customs 1911. Simple. But they don't understand that.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

I thought the "Home Depot Experience"® was just getting to the end of an aisle as they put up the %$@# accordian barricade so you have to backtrack the way you came to get to the next aisle over.

Either that, or not being able to find someone to measure off and cut a length of rope, so you cut it yourself and take it to the cashier who then has to call the associate from the rope department to come get it and go measure and price it.  While they're gone you complain to the cashier about how you tried to find the rope associate in the rope department, but couldn't.  The cashiers love that.

DD

for an installer the home depot experience is them ordering the wrong cabinets for your install (their mistake) having to reorder them 2 more times and each time you make a trip  the whole deal taking 6 weeks and they expect you to wait  to get paid. they release non of the money for 45 days or more when the foulup was theirs.  and it happens a lot.

or them calling you in wanting to chargeback a appliance garage install you did because the lady doesn't like it.  problem is the lady who doesn't like it is not the woman you did the install for   but the lady she sold the house to 6 months later. the lady who paid had you do it a very special way and you made her put it in writing.


or them telling you the back ordered cabinets are there and it taking them 3 hours to get them from the back room to the register. while you wait with 2 guys on your dime


or their "trained designer" selling 96 inch tall cabinets in a 92 inch high room

the list goes on and on

[Brad Johnson]

Here's another good one.  I need a couple gallons of Zinsser's damaged drywall sealer, called Gardz. Home Depot carries every Zinsser product - sealer, primer, sealer/primer, primer/sealer, spray-on, wipe-on, brush-on, spit-on, whatever.  They have a huge display of Zinsser products right by the paint counter. All of them.  Except Gardz. 

Their reason? "We don't sell wallpaper any more and that's for wallpaper."  Okay schmartypantsboy, why do you have a full selection of wallpaper adhesives and papersing tools then, hmmmmm?  Even more frustrating is that apparently only one store in North America sells it.  On Tuesday.  Morning.  When it rains.  In the Sahara.

Brad

[HeroHog]

A LOT of those I/O issues are that the developers are either told to do it one way and one way only or they simply don't listen when the designer tells management that the way it is being set up will be somewhat less than useless! As a Senior Programmer/Analyst for tying databases to the Internet, I have seen this time and time again.

[CNYCacher]

Just some advice to web designers who suck:

- Build a test environment.  Bloody use it for testing.  Production environment is not your test server.
- Check your work on something other than your favorite browser.  Or use valid XHTML code.
- Check your dependencies on your production environment
- WRITE A BLOODY FRIGGIN SCRIPT TO CHECK YOUR DEPENDENCIES.
- Use some logic in your file structure and naming convention

All my code is version-controlled with git.  I have a bare repo outside of the web tree and have it cloned on www. and dev. webroots.  The dev. clone has a development branch checked out, which I push back to the bare repo and fetch to the production root, which has the production branch checked out.  Then I git merge the dev branch, or cherry-pick commits to production.

Validation is a big part of being cross-browser consistent.  There are still a lot of gotchas even if you are fully compliant.  Best idea is to abandon IE6 altogether.  It's under 5% of the market share.