Is the OcUK website comparison tool unfinished?

Malevolence · 18 Jan 2018 at 00:17

Trying to compare the stats of two cases and all I get is this

No comparisons betwixt the two other than the name and the description. Has somebody not finished coding this tool? Surely this can't be all you can compare, what about number of HDD slots, dimensions, maximum GPU length, motherboard compatibility etc, etc?

Thekwango · 18 Jan 2018 at 00:46

it's been quite lacking in comparison features since day dot. looks pretty much the same too so methinks there isn't much happening with it

edit: when I say quite I mean completely!

Malevolence · 18 Jan 2018 at 05:22

I've never really used it before, but I'm currently planning my new system out so am comparing quite a few things. The only solution at the moment is to open multiple tabs and then constantly flick back and forth to compare items. Calling what they have going on at the moment a 'comparison tool' is joke - it doesn't compare anything.

Armageus · 18 Jan 2018 at 05:33

@Matt O'Brien

Malevolence · 18 Jan 2018 at 21:49

And now the menu bar seems to have disappeared.

bsoltan · 19 Jan 2018 at 23:15

I have found that comparisons and even technical specification on most sites like Overclockers and their competitors are severly lacking. Some products have lots of information and some it is very limited or in a completely different format/units/positions.

It is very resource intensive if the manufacturer's don't provide their information in a standard format.

Columbo · 20 Jan 2018 at 14:14

The whole website is lacking not just the comparison tool.

There is just so much wasted space it’s like one of those click bait websites that’s designed to smash in as many ads on the left and right of the screen while the actual content is shoe horned into a tiny tunnel in the middle of the screen, its absolutely horrible to look at.

Thekwango · 20 Jan 2018 at 14:38

Columbo said:
The whole website is lacking not just the comparison tool.

There is just so much wasted space it’s like one of those click bait websites that’s designed to smash in as many ads on the left and right of the screen while the actual content is shoe horned into a tiny tunnel in the middle of the screen, its absolutely horrible to look at.

At least the colour palette, while obviously subjective, seems quite reasonable. Have you seen the abomination that is their parent company website!? That would make your eyes bleed.

TechMinerUK · 20 Jan 2018 at 17:50

Thekwango said:
At least the colour palette, while obviously subjective, seems quite reasonable. Have you seen the abomination that is their parent company website!? That would make your eyes bleed.

It looks like a con website

Malevolence · 20 Jan 2018 at 19:25

The parent company's comparison tool works though, unlike the OcUK one it actually does compare all the various stats of the items. Same two cases as in the OP:-

Columbo · 21 Jan 2018 at 09:39

Thekwango said:
At least the colour palette, while obviously subjective, seems quite reasonable. Have you seen the abomination that is their parent company website!? That would make your eyes bleed.

Nope I hadn't but have just checked and feel like I've looked directly at the sun on a summers day, that website is pure eye poison.
Can only presume that Stevie Wonder and David Blunkett are now moonlighting as web dev's for Caseking because surely someone with working eyes wouldn't put that together?

Malevolence · 28 Jan 2018 at 21:09

Any OcUK staff want to comment on when the comparison tool is getting fixed?

Ace Modder · 30 Jan 2018 at 15:25

having worked for ocuk myself, I think the issue is not the website side, it is the internal systems ocuk uses - it is not geared for putting in a proper "spec" list of features for the site to compare.

Caseking have a totally different internal back end system in place.

I dont expect the compare tool to work within ocuk website unless a massive overhaul is put into place for the ocuk back end system, and then it would be reliant on a member of staff adding the specs to ever product on the site - not a easy or quick job at all.

The ocuk site only has a description tab for the products: (see below)
But the caseking site has a specification tab also (see below)

This specification tab is what the compare tool pulls the data from.... OCUK backend system would need a massive update and the contents filling for every product.... wont happen any time soon for sure.

Malevolence · 30 Jan 2018 at 18:02

Nearly all other competitors have functioning comparison tools on their sites, so why can't OcUK implement one? It's like they thought about including a comparison tool and thought, 'Nah, **** it. Let them do their own work'. It just seems extremely shoddy and very cheap on OcUK's part. Do they not realise that by not having one they're effectively driving people to use competitor sites.

paradigm · 30 Jan 2018 at 18:29

I'd settle for being able to filter by "in stock" items. Scrolling through page after page of out of stock, pre order, or ETA x.x.x. products is infuriating.

Nikumba · 31 Jan 2018 at 12:49

If Caseking the parent company have this info on their DB, surely it is not outside of the realms to either dupe that table of data over your own backend DB or just pull the data from their site?

Kimbie

Malevolence · 25 Apr 2018 at 14:42

Bit of a bump because it's still not working as a functional comparison tool. Perhaps OcUK are just happy for their customers to use competitor's sites in order to compare items.

PiKe · 25 Apr 2018 at 14:53

They already explained that the back-end systems aren't up to it.

Malevolence · 25 Apr 2018 at 15:07

PiKe said:
They already explained that the back-end systems aren't up to it.

Not good enough. Other, lesser companies manage to have a working tool.

PiKe · 25 Apr 2018 at 15:17

Malevolence said:
Not good enough. Other, lesser companies manage to have a working tool.

I don't think you understand the sheer amount of work required to make it work as you want, for ultimately, very little return.