The fact is, it really isn’t all that difficult once you’ve got the basics down. The problem is, it hasn’t really been in the best interest of computer dealers to take the time to explain things to consumers. Somewhat like lawyers and legalese. The sales people make money by being an ad hoc consultant and leading the purchasers to, sometimes, purchases they may not actually require. That’s commission-based remuneration for you.

I proposed that Compaq, who was now selling directly to the end user through the sites we built, allow us to create a comprehensive lesson site to help users educate themselves on an entire range of topics related to buying or upgrading a computer system. I wrote a very long glossary of terms with extremely complete definitions that are hopefully simple to understand. It’s stand-alone and also used in conjunction with a group of lessons. Through an ASP site I created, any words in the glossary are automatically hyperlinked and open in small, daughter windows in case a reader doesn’t know a term but doesn’t want to leave the page to go dive into the glossary.

The user chooses the lesson path that interests him or her. Each lesson will link to subtopics as well as key main topics in case they’ve had their fill of one. As they go through these cleanly and casually presented pages, the system keeps track of the topics that have interested them. After a time, an option called ‘Recommend me a system’ will appear in their option list. Selecting this will display a configuration that meets their particular needs but in a generic brand way. It is absolutely not a hard sell of Compaq computers, but hopefully the ‘student’ will appreciate Compaq providing this system for them. The user can print out the recommended list (or any lesson or definition) to look at while they go to offline or online stores, including Compaq’s (which is linked from the site).

This site, being only sponsored by Compaq, can be placed at its own URL or even as a subsection of a site such as CNET or ZDNET.

I also designed a password protected, Web-based administrative toolset to allow easy updating or addition of lessons and terms by future, non-technical staff - along with an algorithm for computing the recommended systems.