I've begun to suspect the same thing. I'd love to read that article if you can find the link.
I'll add "Single-column mode" to my to-do list. I think I will also make the "Large preview mode" default as well for much the same reason.
I built the whole thing thinking a lot of thumbnails would be awesome. Which is funny because, now that it is built, I agree that it can be distracting. Oops!
User westiseast posted a blog post[1] about A/B testing a grid vs. list product displays on his online tea shop, Min River Tea, which lead to a pretty good discussion on the topic[2].
I'll add "Single-column mode" to my to-do list. I think I will also make the "Large preview mode" default as well for much the same reason.
I built the whole thing thinking a lot of thumbnails would be awesome. Which is funny because, now that it is built, I agree that it can be distracting. Oops!