This is the first ‘labs‘ experiment that I’m posting on the site.  It’s a simple widget that allows you to visually explore the price, capacity and size of hard drives from an online retailer.  It’s an experiment in alternative ways of comparing items that makes it easier to assess all the options and (in this case) find the best deals.

SATA2 Internal Hard Drives

This experimental widget lets you explore real-time prices for SATA2 hard drives at one of the better online stores for computer gear.

Updated hourly

Read more about how the widget was constructed here.

It would be great to see more innovation from e-tailers in the variety of ways they help you find products.  Faceted navigation, and sophisticated search are requirements today, but visual search can also be a powerful tool.  Take a few minutes to explore the visual search tools at Etsy if you haven’t seen them before.  They make it fun and interesting to shop for regular stuff.

A simple visualization like the drive comparison, gives you 4 dimensions of information to share with the user – 2 dimensions along the X and Y axis, as well as bubble color and size.  There is a lot that can be conveyed using those extra dimensions.  It’s much easier to find high-lights and low-lights than with textual search results lists – as you find on most sites today.

It’s possible to add animation as well, which can introduce time-series into the mix – possibly an enhancment for the future.  Animated data visualization is something that both Google and Microsoft have expressed interest in, so it’s something to keep an eye on.