6 ms·
>> And Amazon search isn't terrible because... Amazon may not be intentionally malicious. When you make decisions only on a metric like sale conversions, you w
by duncanawoods 11y ago
>> And Amazon search isn't terrible because...
Amazon may not be intentionally malicious. When you make decisions only on a metric like sale conversions, you will be optimising other factors you are not even aware of. Nothing necessitates that the best UX and happiest customers will be the most profitable.
For example, I recall a story about Amazon trialling infinite scroll. It had positive customer feedback and users viewed more products compared to pagination. However, sale conversions dropped so obviously it was never rolled out. Was it a better browsing experience? Possibly, but that isn't the metric Amazon is optimising for so it just doesn't matter. I expect that there is a threshold where any time saved for a user searching Amazon is not spent buying more products from Amazon but spent on competitor sites.
- bduerst 11y agoMissing design targets because you're optimizing on the wrong metrics is a real problem - but for Amazon to be unintentionally making their search so overly complex to keep users bogged down (as you say) it would require them to be optimizing on number of searches, not sales conversions or revenue. I think even you can admit that sounds just a little absurd.
- duncanawoods 11y agoThey will optimise for probability of a search leading to purchases and likely see 5s searches leading to fewer purchases than 90s searches. You get the same phenomena in retail. You get intentionally confusing layouts in shops, hidden exits, difficult placement of essentials and related items spread at different ends of the store, no clocks etc. to maximise the amount of time a customer spends in their store. It works.