Digi-Key has changed and it is not very good

[floobydust]

What the heck has happened here? The last times I was in the antenna section I didn't remember it being THAT shitty....

That is so bad, it shows they're clueless about the products they sell.
- picklists are being blindly populated by specific values from each manufacturer- instead of a class or grouping, or range to input.
- picklists that are are stupid, qualities that nobody purchases based upon, like VSWR.

Obviously nobody there has used components or done design work to know what parameters are important.
I know EE's that don't even own a soldering iron- and guess who's hiring them en masse lol.

So we have to complain here about the obvious, argue for the mess to get cleaned up? It's a multi-billion dollar corporation that's inept with their website design. This thread can never end.

[Bud]

Each time i see this happen i always have just one question:

- What was wrong with the existing design?

[rsjsouza]

Each time i see this happen i always have just one question:

- What was wrong with the existing design?

Nothing. Change for the sake of change. The same happens in lots of places. It is infuriating at times.

If the accounting department measured and accounted for the man/hours lost in productivity, these initiatives would either be totally shot down or much better thought out.

[SVFeingold]

Might as well use this forum to gripe about one issue I have with DK. Which AFAIK isn't new by any stretch, but after having to input like 200 parts into a BOM recently...

Please just have the Digikey PNs use the same format? It's so annoying to have part numbers like this: NHD-0216K3Z-FS(RGB)-FBW-V3-ND

Rather than just using a numpad to quickly punch out part numbers you have to type all this nonsense in...makes the process much slower. If it evolves to where you're typing in the MPN in addition to a bunch of other special characters and designators (already the case for certain types of parts)...

I'm about 99.9% sure this will never change but there, I said it.

[rsjsouza]

Your post reminded me how we used to have someone that had to verify the BOM of several Contract Manufacturers and input these manuly into SAP. She was always fixing small typos on part numbers (suggesting they were also manually typed at the customer's side) and, for a few other customers, had to convert their own house part numbers into ours.

Even after an order entry system accessible by the customer was set up, this still went on for several years as some were reluctant to change their own ways. Only after she decided to leave the company is when an executive decision was made to push back manual order entries from the customer.

[james_s]

Nothing. Change for the sake of change. The same happens in lots of places. It is infuriating at times.

There is a type of person out there who gets frequently bored, you will hear them praise changes like this because "it looks fresh", as if it's a head of lettuce that starts to wilt after being out for a while. It makes me seethe to hear that because I absolutely loathe change, especially when it is done just for the sake of change without any tangible benefit in exchange for the discomfort it causes. I am very firmly in the camp of preferring the tried & true, something that has gone through the incremental improvements and reached the point where it can be considered perfected and done, then leave it alone and quit screwing with it because it can only go downhill from there. I really like the rare physical products you find that have managed to dodge all the regulatory nonsense and been made exactly the same way for decades with parts still available. For example I recently overhauled the 1960s kitchen sink faucet at our cabin and could buy all the parts to do so off the shelf at the local hardware store. The needs of a faucet have not changed significantly since the 1960s so there is no need for the design to have changed.

[Bud]

Having being through a lot of orgchanges at different companies  throughout my employment, I garantee - this is happening because they hired another Chief of [Watevever] Executive Officer, who came from a sugar drink type of company and brought with him (her being typically worse) a New Vision of Customer Service Strategy. Garanteed, this crap comes from above, so no common sense should be expected.

[SilverSolder]

[...] The needs of a faucet have not changed significantly since the 1960s so there is no need for the design to have changed.

Sadly, someone thought there was a need for them to be made of cheaper materials...  non standard of course.

[rsjsouza]

I am very firmly in the camp of preferring the tried & true, something that has gone through the incremental improvements and reached the point where it can be considered perfected and done, then leave it alone and quit screwing with it because it can only go downhill from there.[/b]

One example that I love: Craigslist.

I really like the rare physical products you find that have managed to dodge all the regulatory nonsense and been made exactly the same way for decades with parts still available.

This is truly heaven. I have a few examples as well, one being a solder sucker sold in Brasil by a company named AFR - I have bought replacement parts for my model that I bought in the 1990s. Here in the US another example is the Edsyn Soldapult. Hakko, Weller and others used to have replacement parts for quite a number of years after discontinuing their models as well.

Despite not having the same long term commitment, after I moved to US I was quite surprised to see how great is the after market parts availability for appliances.

[james_s]

Despite not having the same long term commitment, after I moved to US I was quite surprised to see how great is the after market parts availability for appliances.

Historically that has been true. A few years ago I bought a new gear for the ice maker in the 1971 refrigerator in our cabin. Clothes dryers at least as recently as about 10 years ago are virtually indistinguishable inside from those made in the 1960s and most of the parts are still available. That has been true of the classic top load washers that are common in the US which were all one of 2 or 3 mechanical designs with different cosmetic parts. I think that is starting to change though, even major appliances are getting more complex, more cheaply made and less repairable. I've managed to keep my original Maytag Neptune washer and dryer going for probably 14 years since I got it and it was a broken down freebie when I got it. I suspect eventually the drum spider will break and that will be the end of the road unless I want an excuse to get a TIG welder and do some fabrication.

[tooki]

Clothes dryers at least as recently as about 10 years ago are virtually indistinguishable inside from those made in the 1960s and most of the parts are still available.

That's changing now, thanks to heat pump dryers, which are vastly more energy efficient than traditional vented dryers. (And they're gentler on the clothes, since they don't heat the clothes up as hot.)

[SilverSolder]

Clothes dryers at least as recently as about 10 years ago are virtually indistinguishable inside from those made in the 1960s and most of the parts are still available.

That's changing now, thanks to heat pump dryers, which are vastly more energy efficient than traditional vented dryers. (And they're gentler on the clothes, since they don't heat the clothes up as hot.)

How do they work - are they basically a dehumidifier?

[tooki]

Clothes dryers at least as recently as about 10 years ago are virtually indistinguishable inside from those made in the 1960s and most of the parts are still available.

That's changing now, thanks to heat pump dryers, which are vastly more energy efficient than traditional vented dryers. (And they're gentler on the clothes, since they don't heat the clothes up as hot.)

How do they work - are they basically a dehumidifier?

Yes, insofar as a dehumidifier is a heat pump operating with both the hot and cold sides in the same space. In a heat pump dryer, the hot side warms the air, which is passed through the clothes. The moist air then passes over the cold side, where the humidity condenses. The cold, dry air then passes over the hot side again to warm it back up to begin the cycle again.

[james_s]

That's changing now, thanks to heat pump dryers, which are vastly more energy efficient than traditional vented dryers. (And they're gentler on the clothes, since they don't heat the clothes up as hot.)

My friend got one of those recently, he likes it, they're still very rare in the US though, he's the only person I know who has one. I'd heard of them before though, apparently they've been fairly common in Europe for a while.

[SilverSolder]

They might save a lot of electricity.  Would be interesting to see the numbers.

[dbctronic]

I have also gotten cranked with Digikey lately. I go back and forth between DK and vendors to find parts that have Spice models and are still actually for sale (Spice is looking really passe--getting harder to find these parts). And I don't mean for sale one last time from Rochester with their weird minimum purchase quantities. Why a minimum of 236 parts when they have 3,345 on hand??

Digikey has made this a time consuming hassle by blowing away my spinbox setups, or making me leave the category, then come in and set up again because it won't clear only one spinbox on request, or whatever it's doing this week. The whole process takes twice as long as it did a few years ago! 

[SilverSolder]

[...] (Spice is looking really passe--getting harder to find these parts)[...]

What do people use instead of Spice?

[gussy]

DigiKey has been changing a lot lately, but I can sympathise with their position. They have to make their website work for (at least) two very different use cases, which I'm sure is difficult.

On the one hand, they're a distributor. If you know what you want to buy, you type in a part number, add it to your cart, checkout, get it the next day, awesome. IMO they excel at this part of their website. I can log on two minutes before the deadline for next-day shipping, order the parts I know I want, get them before 10am the next day, super easy.

On the other hand, most of my time actually spent on DigiKey is discovering parts. Like many other EE's I use DigiKey for finding the best components to use in a new product. Designing a website like this has a lot more intricacies than just a stright-forward distributor ecommerce website.

One thing to keep an open mind about, is that while DigiKey might work for you, and you don't want it to change, there are new EE's joining our profession and hobby every day. Every day (maybe even multiple times per hour?) there are people navigating to DigiKey for the very first time, placing their first ever order. This is the reason websites continually change. It's not just "change for the sake of change". As EE's we don't change all the parts on our BOM because we feel like it, but if we find a more efficient part, a cheaper part, or need to replace an EOL'd part, we will make the change because that's worth our time.

A good example of this is the recent picklist change, where the picklists went from normal html select lists, to the (imo) frustrating picklists that no longer perform like a normal html select list. Using CTRL and SHIFT to select multiple is items is broken now, and replaced by selecting individual items by clicking on them. This change is frustrating, but I understand why they did it. I've stood behind at least 3 junior EE's who while using digikey, would select one item from a picklist, view the results, then go back, select another, view those results. When I pointed out that they could select multiple items, they were surprised that this (basic, default html select) feature existed. I observed these same people trying to select multiple items by just clicking on them (like you can do now). This is why websites like DigiKey make these changes, because while you may know how to use the tool very efficiently, there's bound to be lots of people less experienced learning or struggling.

It's a tricky balance to keep. On the one hand you don't want to alienate your existing customers, but on the other hand you want to make it as easy as possible for new users to make their first order. Inevitably the balance usually tips more towards the new users, as experienced users are probably less likely to leave over UI changes. I know I won't leave over the new picklists. While I really don't like the new picklists, I know that the value DigiKey offers is in more than just their picklists.

[james_s]

There's nothing about the new website that makes it easier for a brand new customer to place their first order. When an engineer is choosing a part they need a good parametric search to find that part, it doesn't matter if they have 40 years of experience or are a fresh college grad, the process is the same. Making a crappy website that is in a constant state of flux, requires extra clicks everywhere and a parametric search that is a complete mess doesn't make it better for anybody.

[gussy]

There's nothing about the new website that makes it easier for a brand new customer to place their first order.

I literally just explained one real world case where the new picklists would have been easier to use for a junior EE I've observed with my own eyes.

[ataradov]

It is still not a good argument to dumb down the interfaces instead of educating people.

Standard UI elements are not that hard to figure out. If you don't know how multiple selections work, you are likely not very efficient with managing files in the OS. As a junior anything you should be looking for education rather than expecting that things will be fixed for you.

It is unbelievable how many people I see that have no clue how to do even the most basic things with the command line. And asking to add something to PATH is like asking to write a PhD. This stupidity must end at some point.

[gussy]

It is still not a good argument to dumb down the interfaces instead of educating people.

Standard UI elements are not that hard to figure out. If you don't know how multiple selections work, you are likely not very efficient with managing files in the OS. As a junior anything you should be looking for education rather than expecting that things will be fixed for you.

It is unbelievable how many people I see that have no clue how to do even the most basic things with the command line. And asking to add something to PATH is like asking to write a PhD. This stupidity must end at some point.

That's a great point and I completely agree. I'd much rather see some useful tooltips or pop-overs educating users how to use a standard html select list and breaking a standard HTML element.

OTOH, for a while now Windows has let you select multiple files by clicking a select box on each one, presumably because selecting multiple items wasn't intuitive enough. I'm sure there was some solid user testing behind that change. Only DigiKey knows the actual win/loss ratio of how these changes attract or detract customers. There's a good chance we are in the minority

[james_s]

OTOH, for a while now Windows has let you select multiple files by clicking a select box on each one, presumably because selecting multiple items wasn't intuitive enough. I'm sure there was some solid user testing behind that change. Only DigiKey knows the actual win/loss ratio of how these changes attract or detract customers. There's a good chance we are in the minority

I don't think they do know. I think somebody in management has been watching Amazon rake in billions and wants to be like them. The problem they don't seem to realize is that DK has an entirely different customer base with entirely different needs and trying to be Amazon will fail, while abandoning the needs of their existing customer base will also fail. By the time anyone realizes that the person who made that decision will have taken their bonus and moved on to some other company.

[james_s]

I literally just explained one real world case where the new picklists would have been easier to use for a junior EE I've observed with my own eyes.

If somebody can't figure out how to select multiple items I would be seriously questioning the hiring decision. That is something that virtually every 8 year old should know how to do by now, more so anyone who has managed to earn a degree in EE. If they can't figure out how to do that, how are they ever going to navigate their way through any EDA or IDE in order to produce any output?

[SVFeingold]

I'm glad to see these viewpoints laid out so passionately. It really helps me identify the kind of engineer I don't want to become as I roll through my 30s and beyond.

Everyone is stupid if they don't use my workflow. New customers are confused by the UI? Good. They're dumb anyway. How'd they get to be engineers?  Anyone going through a 4 year program should know how to use this website! Good riddance! Digikey doesn't need such dumb customers.

Seriously what kind of attitude is this? Digikey doesn't exist to rant at the clouds about youngsters these days. They're here to attract new customers and keep existing ones and grow their business. As is every business. Only they know whether their changes accomplish this goal or not, because they're the only ones with relevant data. I hope they fire any web designer that can't set up simple A/B tests without going off on a tangential rant about how everyone is stupid nowadays.

Now that said: yes, I agree that some of their design changes aren't great for my workflow. The picklist threw me off for a bit at first until I got used to it. Which took about 15 minutes. Do I like it more? Not sure yet, but there have been many times in the past when I accidentally let go of CTRL and wiped the selection I spent a while making. So I get the motivation. It's ironic to rant about dummies who don't understand a simple UI considering how it's arguably even simpler now. Glass houses, etc.

This is the same attitude Linux fanboys have. I wonder how "everyone who can't use a command line is stupid" Linux is doing vs MacOS in the consumer market? I wonder why that could be.

Doesn't mean everything DK does is perfect but they're not going to listen to people ranting about young engineers in lieu of constructive criticism. I'm as opinionated as anyone else but I try to consider things from other viewpoints in case I'm wrong. And frankly the more I progress in my career, the more and more I encounter mid-to-late career engineers who are needlessly bitter/angry about literally every little thing. It takes actual work to not go that route and folding your arms saying "everyone's dumb but me" isn't the way. Anecdotally this attitude has been much more prevalent in the EE field than any other field I work with. Who knows.

On-topic: When I was a new engineer I had no problems with the picklists (yay) but I admit that Digikey wasn't really useful to me. I wasn't working with an existing BOM, rather was looking for random parts to do cool projects. In other words: trying to discover new products. And it wasn't really great for that. It still isn't IMO. Nowadays I know exactly what I'm looking for so Digikey is much more usable for me, but I understand the struggle for new and/or inexperienced engineers. It took a while for Digikey to "make sense." Until that point I frequented Sparkfun and Adafruit much more often because they cater to new engineers and really just to exploring and discovering cool stuff. They're not really comparable. I definitely don't want Digikey to change that much but there's probably something they could borrow that would make it more enticing for new engineers. Throwing a bone to a new engineer today might mean tens of thousands of dollars in POs in the future.