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What if?! As a customer, I find that Amazon has some of the worst usability of a shopping site that I have run across in a while. I think amazon is successful

What if?! As a customer, I find that Amazon has some of the worst usability of a shopping site that I have run across in a while. I think amazon is successful in /spite/ of their design, certainly not /because/ of it.

avinium 8y ago
Personally, I've never had a problem with Amazon's design (though AWS is another story). If their design is actually "bad", then my only takeaway is that design isn't nearly as important as people claim (at least, for this particular industry).
- vinay427 8y ago
  The only time I've had to think about how to do something on the Amazon marketplace website is when trying to contact their support. I'm required to go through several prompts asking if one of their FAQs answers my questions, and of course they don't, though perhaps this is intentional to make their support more efficient. 95% of the time, everything works as I expect it to, which is about as good as it gets for me.
- ajhurliman 8y ago
  Any particular gripes with AWS? Genuinely curious, not defending anything here.
  - avinium 8y ago
    I don't want to trigger a war - honestly, it's probably just personal preference (and I now almost exclusively work in Azure, so things may have changed in the last 12-18 months). My gripe was mainly about the density of the UI elements - it always felt like there was a lot of text/images crammed into a small space, so I had to inspect every single option before I found the one I wanted. People have made similar comments about the Azure portal, though, but I never felt the same, so YMMV. Like I said, personal preference.
- preommr 8y ago
  Or it's not their main priority. I think amazon's dominance comes from a lot of things other than their website design. Maybe they could make more money if they improved the UI, but the impetus isn't there because the focus is on improving their delivery network for example.
acjohnson55 8y ago
I actually think it's one of the better ones. Not because it's actually good, but because online shopping somehow remains persistently awful.

avinium 8y ago

Personally, I've never had a problem with Amazon's design (though AWS is another story). If their design is actually "bad", then my only takeaway is that design isn't nearly as important as people claim (at least, for this particular industry).

vinay427 8y ago
The only time I've had to think about how to do something on the Amazon marketplace website is when trying to contact their support. I'm required to go through several prompts asking if one of their FAQs answers my questions, and of course they don't, though perhaps this is intentional to make their support more efficient. 95% of the time, everything works as I expect it to, which is about as good as it gets for me.
ajhurliman 8y ago
Any particular gripes with AWS? Genuinely curious, not defending anything here.
- avinium 8y ago
  I don't want to trigger a war - honestly, it's probably just personal preference (and I now almost exclusively work in Azure, so things may have changed in the last 12-18 months). My gripe was mainly about the density of the UI elements - it always felt like there was a lot of text/images crammed into a small space, so I had to inspect every single option before I found the one I wanted. People have made similar comments about the Azure portal, though, but I never felt the same, so YMMV. Like I said, personal preference.
preommr 8y ago
Or it's not their main priority. I think amazon's dominance comes from a lot of things other than their website design. Maybe they could make more money if they improved the UI, but the impetus isn't there because the focus is on improving their delivery network for example.

acjohnson55 8y ago

I actually think it's one of the better ones. Not because it's actually good, but because online shopping somehow remains persistently awful.