As I write this post, we’re in the final stages of completing a massive project to upgrade all of the main product navigation pages on Samtec.com. The current navigation structure has been around for nearly a decade, and has been replaced in all of our literature with our new Solution Block approach. While the Solution Blocks exist in several places across Samtec.com, we have yet to fully replace the old structure.
It won’t be much longer until you’ll see the old navigation go away, and be fully replaced by the Solution Blocks at the top of the website. Here’s a more in-depth preview than I wrote a couple of months back, with some screenshots to show you an insider’s look.
For those of you who are not familiar with our Solution Blocks method of product categorization, you can reference our Picture Search tool to get a better understanding of it. Instead of lumping most products under the “Connectors” heading as we do in the current legacy navigation, this approach uses six Solution Blocks, which categorize the products using a solution-oriented approach to the problems that they solve.
The Products Page
In the new navigation, instead of starting with a choice of “Connectors, Cables, Optics, or RF”, we’ll have a single “Products” menu at the top, which will also open up some additional room in the navigation for the organization of other key areas of the website, as a side-benefit.
Here’s a screenshot of how that will flow on the top of the website. Since we’re still in the process of updating the CSS styles, the below screenshot still looks a bit crude, but don’t worry. It’ll be clean and polished by the time we release it to users.
From this point, people can either click on Products to see the six Solution Blocks and additional details about each one, or hover to navigate into each one, or the level below.
The Solution Blocks Pages
Each Solution Block page will contain helpful information about the products in its section of the website, such as the physical characteristics of the products, performance and speed ratings, high-level testing information, and links to various tools throughout the website to help with product selection. We’ll also feature an overarching graphic on each of these pages that represents the products within the Solution Block.
Here’s an example of our High-Speed Board-to-Board Solution Block page. A version 1 of this page (and some others) already exists on the website, so if you’ve seen that it should feel familiar.
The main goal of these pages is to inform users that they’re in the right place without being too overwhelming and then get them to the next step in the journey. Each Solution Block page will link into the next area of our hierarchy, the Product Group pages, and will also give users the option to jump straight into the deeper down family pages if they choose to do so.
We’ll feature high-detail renderings of the products in each family, as well as short descriptions of those families, created by our marketing team.
The Product Group Pages
The next level is where users start to figure out exactly what they’re after. The Product Group pages break down the products even further, separating them by product family. At this level, users know what type of product they’re after and are likely zeroing in on the physical and performance characteristics of the product they require.
Again, this page features a detailed hero image at the top which shows a sampling of products that will be found in this area, a description of the products, links to tools, and then directs users to the families in each section. Each family will feature a high-resolution rendering of the products offered, which will swap out as users hover over the Products dropdown box.
Clicking on the family heading will direct users to the final new level of our hierarchy, the family pages.
The Family Pages
If you’ve been using the Samtec.com website for the last 7-8 years, you’re likely familiar with our existing family page (example here for NovaRay®), which is the last step before users choose a base series to configure their end product.
These pages have been so widely accepted and so successful that we saw no reason to change them. The biggest update to this area of the website will be that these pages (as well as the others from above) will all be using a new back-end content management system (CMS) and new CSS framework, so they’ll load MUCH faster, will better adhere to modern performance best practices, and will be far easier to maintain, resulting in a better user experience across the board. To do this, we rebuilt them entirely from scratch.
The only thing you should notice in this area is a slight style difference with the grid layout, and a change in the URL structure to fit into the new Solution Block hierarchy. Everything else will be virtually the same.
So, When Is This Update Coming?
With the back-end content management system, the CSS framework, and the product page code itself, among several other details, this project is basically three and a half massive projects in one, so it’s difficult to say exactly when this will happen, but we’re far enough along to say it will be sometime in Q2 of 2024. It’ll be easy to spot because the menu will say “Products” instead of the previous hierarchy.
Don’t worry. We’ll redirect all of the old pages so if you have them bookmarked, or there are other incoming links to them, the new pages will be served up perfectly in their place. That’s a project in itself across several hundred pages 🙂
Once it’s all released I’ll do another post with a more in-depth tour of the new pages. Be on the lookout for this gigantic website update in Q2 2024!
Coming Soon to Samtec.com
That does it for now. Thanks for being a loyal reader of The Samtec Blog.
Here is what we’re currently working on, and a few other updates that are coming soon!
- A full overhaul and simplification of our navigation structure
- An overhaul of our Pricing and Delivery system
- A major update to our on-site Search experience
- A major update to our Order Status system
- Several user-experience updates for major website applications
- Performance and speed improvements
- And more!
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