- Image by gahlord via Flickr
One of my clients makes awesome wool hats here in Vermont. These hats are made-to-order and very customizable. There are over 650,000 variations possible, not including adding different team names, for just one style of hat. I’m not joking. Very customizable.
The problem with this level of customization, of course, is managing all the different options to get the order submitted correctly. My client was on his way to a trade show and at a trade show, being able to process these kinds of orders quickly and accurately has a big impact on the old bottom line.
So Thoughtfaucet made a Flash widget that allowed visitors to the client’s booth to quickly select their options and print out an order form on-site, including a representation of what the hat will look like. How did it work out?
The widget was enormously successful at the show. We made over 300 art samples in 2 days.
Because Thoughtfaucet focuses on data-driven and forward thinking coding practices we’re looking forward to spreading the custom team hat widget through a variety of media including the client’s ecommerce website.
A take-away here is to look at developing web assets that have value beyond the web itself. Here was something that could have just sat on a website somewhere, but it was a real star performer when put into a live-people environment.
