user research - Best Practice for product titles with dimensions

I am having a debate with someone about the best way to name products on an eCommerce site that has several different dimensions. For example:

1. Epic 13 (33" x 50" x 78") Shower Stall with Center Drain


2. Epic 13 33" x 50" x 78" Shower Stall with Center Drain


3. Epic 13 Shower Stall with Center Drain 33" x 50" x 78"


4. Epic 13 Shower Stall with Center Drain (33" x 50" x 78")

So Epic 13 is the product name, some product names will have the numbers and some will be something basic like Awesome SD without any numbers.

I personally like number 1 the best. My reasons are that the product name is always first, the dimensions come second and are enclosed in parentheses to make them stand out because they are important to the consumer. The drain location is also very important.

The person I am debating with thinks number 3 is the best because they feel it is cleaner looking and it is short because there are no parentheses.

I would like to hear what other people think about this, maybe some suggestions or alternatives. Ideally if there was a study done on this that I can reference that would be ideal. Google did not bear fruit in my quest for the answer.

Answer

I'd suggest number 3.

The typical order would be: Manufacturer - Product Line - Product - Descriptor - Differentiator. Each item appears as an increasingly specific detail to categorise it within the previous element, much like you might use a directory based file path to identify a file on a drive.

The identifiers depend on the product and its categories and how much is needed to specify it uniquely. Not all parts may appear and it's arguable whether dimensions are a part of the descriptor or a differentiator but things often come in different sizes but are otherwise identical and so the dimensions usually come last with no need to put them in brackets.

If you had the same product with the same dimensions but also in different colours, you might add the colour on the end as the final differentiator.

So you'd see for a shower tray products listed like this:

"Nabis flat shower tray and riser 900 x 760"

"Coram Rectangular Shower Tray 3 Ups 1Panel 1200mm x 800mm White"

Brackets just add unnecessary clutter, with no real reason to add them to the dimension element any more than you would for the colour or any other part.

If the descriptor contained numbers in such a way that the numbers may be confused with the dimensions then you might show W:1200mm x D:800mm

Having said all that, you'll inevitably find different formats in different places for different products and from different suppliers simply because there is no hard and fast rule that content managers are bound by.

What I find more confusing is when different products on the same website use different ordering of the elements and different formatting rules on the same page, sometimes with brackets and sometimes without. See the bad example below.

Therefore, I'd say that while the above rules make sense, it's more important that you at least be consistent in the use of your chosen format across all the products and instances where those products are described or referenced.