Amazon.com: 2,600 pixels later
February 1st, 2006
While perusing Amazon.com the other day, it dawned on me how truly enormous their home page is. Curious, I stitched together the entire page only to find it went on for 2,600 pixels, or 2 1/2 computer screens for the average shopper. Sadly, most of the content are for things I have no interest in. Sure, a month ago I was looking at bed sheets. Obviously, though, if I didn’t buy bed sheets from Amazon the first five times, I probably will not the sixth time.
Marketing potential aside, this is what I call bad user interface design. The crime? Sacrificing simplicity and turning Amazon.com into a virtual WalMart that focuses on bombarding you with quantity over intelligent choices.
Popularity: 2% [?]
January 31st, 2006 at 9:48 pm
One might say this is sacrificing usability for economics. I don’t buy it. A case in point is the iTunes Music Store, which has a far better UI and is extremely profitable for Apple.
Amazon broke the mold once before, they have no excuse not to try again to redefine how we interact with online stores. While I’m aware that they lightly experiment with their frontpage design, I believe this only further entrenches them in their current paradigm.
January 31st, 2006 at 11:55 pm
Agreed. But at least they’re not eBay, which really really sucks.
February 3rd, 2006 at 6:37 pm
While their UI could stand to evolve, I find their a9 algorithms frighteningly good, and improving. In my experience, a year ago they weren’t much better than .500 but now they’re batting about .750. In fact, they’ve suckered me into making a giant sized wish list. The bottleneck now is finding people who want to buy me stuff!