Matrix Orbital Corp

unclaimer: ths post is meant to express some personal frustration i had in my recent selection and ordering. i'm only posting it here to get others opinions, and to find out if i'm the only one who thinks these things. it's all constructive :p

i bought an lk202-24 (or something), 2 line, blue background, character display last december. i love it, and lcdc is kickass. 'nuff said.

a few weeks ago i started looking at mo's new web site to find a new lcd. the 'graphics' lcd's looked really neat, but i found myself confused over and over again when checking them out...

glk12232:

even though the description for this one says:

The WBL is every bit as versatile as the SM with an attractive display on a single board. This unit is ideal for those wanting the use of a 20 by 4 character display and to have graphics displayed at the same time. As with our LK units, the GLK12232-25-WBL also gives you the ability to easily use with a 25 key keypad. This product is an idea fit for industrial fax and printer machines.

(btw, typo there in last line.)

i saw people in the forums using them for personal use, with lcdc, so i didn't hesitate in thinking they qualified for what i was wanting (a new, nifty lcd).

but after i set mine up the other day, i found no less than 3 posts by MO staff (i'm pretty sure), saying they were "not really for personal use, and while lcdc COULD be used, it wasn't ideal."

!!!

i think you REALLY oughta say that stuff (and in that way) at the purchase end, people. i started to feel really bad about my purchase (something you definitely don't want customers doing) until i got it working reasonably well. you might mention the max refresh rate (don't think it says that in there but i could be wrong), and why that will make vu meters and such with the winamp plug-in... limited.

accessories:

under each item there's all these different accessories you can add, but there's only descriptions.

even after reading about the 2 mounting options, i didn't quite understand EXACTLY what i would get, and found myself pouring through the forums to find pictures and use. i eventually DID find them, but i shouldn't have had to do that (and many newcomers to this won't).

you have a 1ft, 4ft, and 4br serial cable option. once again, i had to go to the forums to DIG OUT the information that should have been right there, at the point of purchase, when i was READY to purchase... what is this 4br option? why would i want it? what do i need along with it? oh, the 1ft cable would help. is the 4ft one ok by itself then (without having to get the 4br option)?

i somehow happened to stumble on one of the installation guides (not even for my model), which showed the 4BR option to me clearly.

the keypad: i got it, i like it, but i was expecting a numeric keypad that looked like something hacked off from a full pc keyboard. what i got was a millimeter thin piece of material. i'm not complaning about what i got, just that i couldn't tell WHAT i was going to get until it got here.

mx series:

by the way the initial descriptions read (where u see 5 on the page), you sort of get the impression that x model is good as a bay bus, y model for monitoring cpu statistics, z model for winamp and volume monitoring, etc.

aren't they all the same but with different colors? is it intentional to make it look like you have "more" products to list them this way? i found myself with one opened in one browser window, and another in another, flipping back and forth with alt-tab to find out WHY you say which ones are good for which purposes.

btw, the mx212 extended desc. page has a typo:

"Interfaces
# nterface with up to 24-key keypad"

(notice the 'I' missing).

pc bay inserts:

you list the mx series again in here, even though they have their own menu section. i think i know why, though

starting on the first page, you re-use a stock graphic of an insert but you can't see the front of the lcd, and on the next page there are NO IMAGES AVAILABLE (still). *pulls hair out*

ok, back to page 1, blc2041 says in its extended desc that it's yellow/green background, but blc2041-wb doesn't say anything about color. *i* think it might involve the colors white and blue somehow (and i could be wrong), but any new customer that's at your site for the first time (the kind you really want to get) will have no clue what your color scheming conventions are.

also, under the blc2041-wb:

Includes
# Serial LCD Display with wide voltage (20 characters x 4 lines) - Product # LCD2041-V

the use of parenthesis here... does that mean that 20x4 lines has something to do with wide voltage?

i see the lcd2041-v under lcd2041 in the 'character lcd' section. being that there's no picture for the blc2041-wb, a link to that page would have been mega-helpful.

i think i could go on and on, but i won't

i seriously closed the browser in frustration on no less than 3 different days when i was at your site trying to decide on what to buy. i kept coming back because i knew how cool lcd's were, but that's me.

and yes, i COULD have emailed you and gotten my questions answered, but that's an extra step between you and my money, and you only get so many steps before a potential customer clicks the big close button on your web page (and your company).

i love your products. the lcd i just got shipped so quick it must have flown out the door the second i hit SUBMIT on my order.

i only say these things to help you, because i want to see you succeed (so i can be the first to order the holographic FX model in 2014 :p)

i like the new site DESIGN. i don't have the menu problems i had with the old one and mozilla.

i went to school for web design, and while i don't want you critiquing MY work, i hope that if i tell you that *I'M* having comprehension problems here, you will consider that it's a real problem and address it.

i don't know if you do your own site or contract it out. i DO know how hard it is to put a ton of information on a web site in a form everyone will be able to understand...


thanks for listening...
-p

This has to be the longest post on the forum. I thankyou for all your information and opinions. This is just a quick post as it's 2am right now... but I will assure you everything you wrote will be looked at and evaluated so we can make the website better.

This has to be the longest post on the forum.

yay, i win!

i didn't realize how long it was until it was over, and by then it was too late to turn back...


thanks for responding,
-p

i was thinking about this a lot last night, and i think i came up with 23 more issues.

kidding.

actually, i boiled down my issues into what i would like (if i had my way).

1.) fix the spelling errors (too many=death of professionalism).

2.) finish posting pictures of all products (that you want to sell).

3.) a buying guide would be most helpful of all. at first, i was thinking a wizard-type thing would be good, ala wacom's "which tablet is right for you..." ( http://www.wacom.com/tabletwizard/index.cfm ), where you answer a series of questions about what you want in an lcd, and on the last page you are presented with the best product(s) for your needs, but it's possible that you have too many different lcd's and options, and the programming behind that could get messy.

so, howabout a buyers guide section where you have several pages, devoted to each lcd type (char, graph, vfd), and on those pages you describe the benefits and ideal uses of each one, what existing softwares work well with them, describe ALL of the options and accessories you might encounter on the purchase pages (why would i want high voltage, what about all those serial cable options, what are gpo's, what does the keypad look like, etc), WITH pictures (or links to the associated page in 'Accessories').

AND...*drum roll*... do that from a clueless newbie-customer standpoint.

i see you have some guides in the forum, but if you do a buyers guide i think you should definitely have a menu link to it directly on the main pages' menus (i would not think to go into the forum for this).

also, i just found the pictures of the 4br (and all the rest), under 'Accessories'. i think if you could link to those from each display's detail pages that would be great, because i came to your site, found an lcd i wanted to buy under 'graphic lcds', and got hung up on the options because all i had there were brief descriptions. i don't know why it didn't occur to me to go to 'Accessories', but it didn't. hey, i said i was clueless :p

4.) i know you don't want to repeat the short descriptions for each mx display on the mx pages, so i guess i'd say to either a) have a paragragh above them, saying they're all identical except for color, and/or b) state that in the buyers guide...


i don't ask for much, do i?


*runs*


-p

how's that evaluation coming?

btw, BLC2041-WB has a spelling error, "Software an manual on CDROM"

what color is that one anyway?


-p

I hate for my first post in any forum to be negative, but I have to say that this thread really hit home. I've recently decided to get an LCD display for my new system, and came to Matrix Orbital based on some great reviews of your product. Upon browsing the site however, I quickly became frustrated and confused. Not to rewrite proton's already thorough post, but I slammed into many of the same questions and issues that he faced.

I was first hoping to get some information on the differences between the various displays that you offer, and quickly found that I had to look elsewhere for it. I would expect to find at least some overview on your site, but nope.

After doing some research on my own, I decided that I wanted the 4 line display in blue and white. As proton stated, it was impossible to tell which model in your "dual bay" section was what color, and I left wondering if the color was the only difference between the BLC2041's listed as the descriptions for each was different. I must have been back and forth at least a dozen times to your site and each time I decided not to buy because I still wasn't sure I was getting what I wanted.

I'll probably buy one of your displays, but only because I've had to do exhaustive research outside your site - and had the advantage of knowing people who have used your product. If I wasn't so dead set on a display, I would have given up weeks ago. The suggestions listed above would all help make the site easier for LCD noobs and for everyone else too (I'm sorry but trying to pull a color out of a model number isn't always intuitive).

I hope this isn't too critical, but I do think that cleaning some of this stuff up will only help business. I'm sure there are many others who have been scared away, but haven't bothered to look at these forums. Thank you for listening.