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Process

How to Choose a Laptop

Turning an abstract decision into a concrete one

A guided, pre-filled scoring tool that helps people choose a laptop without needing to think in abstractions. Built from a real decision I made for family and friends.

Timeframe: 2026, ongoing
Roles: Product, Web Development, Copywriting
Deliverables: An interactive laptop-scoring tool at robhutters.com/projects/decisionmatrix/, plus an optional paid walkthrough.
Clients/Users: People who want to buy a laptop but feel lost among near-identical options.
Status: Live, low-maintenance.

Introduction

Buying a laptop is hard for most people. There are hundreds of near-identical configurations, the spec sheets are full of jargon, and every review contradicts the last one. I built a tool for my sister to help her choose a laptop, then my friends started using it too.

Problem + main research question

  • Problem: People know roughly what they want from a laptop ("good enough, not too expensive, decent screen") but can't translate that into a choice across dozens of similar models. A generic "decision matrix" solves this in theory, but most people find abstract frameworks off-putting; they don't want to think in weighted criteria, they just want to pick a laptop.
  • Research question: Can a weighted-scoring tool feel concrete and effortless if it's framed entirely around one familiar decision, choosing a laptop, and comes pre-filled so nobody faces a blank page?

Target market

Non-technical buyers: someone helping a parent, a student on a budget, anyone who has opened six browser tabs of laptop listings and given up. They know their situation; they don't know how to weigh a Ryzen 5 against an extra €100 and a nicer screen.

Deliverable

A single interactive page with:

  1. A three-step flow, decide what matters, rate the laptops you're considering, read the ranked result.
  2. Sensible laptop criteria (processor, RAM, storage, screen, price, and so on) pre-filled by default, so the tool is concrete the moment it loads.
  3. Full flexibility underneath: criteria and weights are editable, and you can start from scratch if you want to score something else.
  4. An optional €49 "let me pick your laptop for you" service, a personalised Loom walkthrough, for people who'd rather hand it off entirely.

The key decision: kill the abstraction

The original version was framed as "The Decision Matrix", a general-purpose weighted-scoring tool that happened to use a laptop example. It was technically more capable and conceptually neater, but that framing asked the visitor to first understand what a decision matrix is before they could get value. That's exactly the abstraction the target user doesn't want.

The rework flips it: the whole thing is now presented as how to choose a laptop. The generic engine is still in there and still flexible, but nobody has to know that to use it. The concrete framing does the heavy lifting; the abstraction is an implementation detail.

Build

v1 — the private version

  • A weighted scoring sheet made for my sister and a friend, criteria, weights, scores, a ranked result.

v2 — the public tool

  • Rebuilt as an interactive page (HTML, CSS, vanilla JS) with three tabs (Criteria → Score → Results), a live weight total that must add to 100%, and localStorage so work persists between visits.
  • Framed generically as "The Decision Matrix", with a laptop example loaded by default.

v3 — laptop-first reframe [latest]

  • Repositioned the entire page around choosing a laptop: title, guide steps, and copy all speak to laptops rather than abstract "options" and "criteria".
  • The laptop criteria now are the default, not just an example, so a first-time visitor lands on a concrete setup they can immediately edit.
  • Kept the escape hatch (start from scratch) for anyone who wants the general tool.

Reflection

The interesting lesson here isn't technical, the scoring maths is trivial. It's that the same tool can be useless or useful depending entirely on framing. As a "decision matrix" it asked people to be comfortable with abstraction, which the people who most need help with a purchase usually aren't. As "how to choose a laptop" it meets them exactly where they are. The generality I was proud of was actually the barrier.