How do I use the catalogue?
Explains each part of the Catalogue page so that you can quickly find devices or apps that are relevant to you
The catalogue is the heart of the Tech Guide.
Click "Catalogue" in the menu at the top of the window on any page of the Tech Guide to explore the catalogue. (On a mobile device, first tap the three-lines "burger" menu in the top right corner of your device, then tap "Catalogue" on the menu that appears.)
You will then see a page titled "Explore the catalogue".
Underneath the white introduction area, you will see a search bar and filter buttons.
Under this is the list of products.
Introduction
This area of the page briefly outlines what the page is for. It also provides some quick filters (see below) to help you get started exploring the Tech Guide's catalogue.
Search and filters
The Tech Guide's catalogue includes quite a lot of products. This means it can be hard to find something that might meet your needs. The search and filters can help you with this.
Search
The search bar works like Google. Type or paste a product name or company into the box and hit the Return key on your keyboard or click the magnifying-glass button at the end of the search bar. The product list will update to show only products that match your search.
This can be useful, for example, to discover more about something you've read about elsewhere or have heard about at a meeting or on TV.
Once you've made a search, you will also see what you typed appear in a white "pill" underneath the search bar. This is a reminder of how you've refined the catalogue list. To go back to the full list, you can click the pill to dismiss it. Or you can click the white "Reset" button to the right of the search bar.
Filters
Filters work a bit like searches, but you don't need to type anything. They're a bit like pre-defined searches that highlight groups of products that people often find useful.
The first way to explore filters is right at the top of the page. The white introduction area ends with a line starting: "You can explore", followed by 5 commonly used filters. Click any of them and the catalogue list below will change to show only the matching products.
For more control and detail, you can click the "Filters" button to the right of the Search bar. A dialog box will open that shows the various filters that you can use. They fall into four groups:
- What you want to do - broadly, activities that you might want to pursue and would like to find devices or apps that help with
- Product types - choose to see only physical devices you can carry and wear, only apps for your phone, or only web sites
- Symptoms you want help with - the medical approach, letting you pick specific symptoms you might experience, to see devices and apps that might help
- Price range - group the results in broad price bands from Free up to those that cost more than £1000
There is also a final option, letting you see only those products for which we've published a Trusted Review. Initially, this is a small number but over the coming months we will publish more and more reviews. In the meantime, this may be a useful way to find the products with this in-depth perspective.