I'd like to share with you the site I've been working on for the past year and a half... It's called LifeSizer, and allows you to view any product in it's actual true size on any computer screen or mobile device. I came up with this a few years ago when I bought some jewelry for my wife, but after I received it the earrings turned out to be much bigger than I expected. That started me thinking: why isn't it possible to get a better sense of the size of a product on most ecommerce sites? Wouldn't it be great if you could view products in their actual size on a screen, so you really get a better idea of what it is that you're buying?
The technical challenge here was obvious: To be able to display anything in true size on a screen, you'll need to know the pixel density of that screen. Unfortunately there's no way to determine that programmatically (at least not from within a browser). You can calculate it based on the current screen resolution and the physical screen dimensions, but that actual screen size is an unknown too.
The beauty (I think) of the solution I came up with is that it allows me to determine that screen size (even if the user doesn't know it himself) by using a simple calibration trick. And we've built in such a way that it can easily be integrated with other sites, here for example: http://mwctoys.com/REVIEW_060412a.htm (see the second image).
We're officially launching today, and please check it out here:
http://beta.lifesizer.com/images/featured
I would love to hear input from the community on what you think. Have you ever bought anything online that was much bigger or smaller than you expected? Do you see wide scale use for a feature like this? Would you use it on your own site? How can it be improved further?
thanks!
Peter