4 ms·

Amazon’s Navigation Bar Is Revealing

46 points by dell9000 15y ago

movingahead 15y ago
It is similar to Google pushing its own services like Maps and Music results in Search. Also, Amazon may think that users looking for physical goods will stop and get enticed to its now impressive collection of digital stores.
- esrauch 15y ago
  I don't think that is a fair assessment; Google's core products are the links that are on the top of the google.com landing page. Amazon's core product is the sale of physical goods, they are just trying to stay on the leading edge of things and get a foothold in digital goods while the getting is still good. They know that being early to market is insanely important today, even a year delay can end up being the difference between Groupon and Google Deals. It's typically impossible to compete with an entrenched product by one of the big tech corps as they have the engineering man power to duplicate any improvement you make over their formula if you start depriving them of the tiniest portion of their user base.
6ren 15y ago
Just skimming the terms for their cloud drive, they have the right to increase the fees at any time, without notice, effective immediately; though it won't affect your service during its term. However, the "term" of the free service is not mentioned - I would expect it not to have a term. If they are going to promote a free service, and then scare you with a "binding contract" agreement (which indicates they are really serious about it), they should at least go to the trouble to assure you that they won't charge you for what they say is free. They also don't guarantee security or privacy - that's fair enough, pretty standard.
spiralganglion 15y ago
This seems somewhat tasteless. Surely there's a better way they could push their services on their physical-goods customers. If this is a response to iCloud, it's not a very "Apple-like" response. Then again, Amazon's cloud offerings aren't very "Apple-like" either, for better or for worse.
- ghurlman 15y ago
  It's hardly a response... it's been that way for a while.
bradleyland 15y ago
Amazon is the kind of company that spends a lot of resources understanding how visitors use their site. I'd venture that Amazon knows exactly what product categories are strong "browsers" and which are strong from an "inbound link" or "search" perspective. Browser - Customers come to amazon.com, click through to a category, and just browse Inbound link - Users are fed to a landing/product page by some other source (like a shopping engine or app) Search - Someone comes to amazon.com looking for a specific product an immediately places a search Understanding which categories are used by these different classes of user allows you to re-focus your primary navigation to maximize efficiency for each class. "Browsers" need categorical navigation. Notice that the top three (non cloud service) categories available for immediate browsing are all entertainment related. These are categories with a significant requirement for discovery; that is, visitors looking to discover new content.
- dkarl 15y ago
  I agree. I buy several items per month, and other than the Kindle store, I never realized any of those seven top items were on the front page anywhere. I'm as surprised to see them as anyone else even though I visited that page yesterday, today, and probably several times last week.
mithaler 15y ago
I'm willing to put an educated guess as to the reasoning behind such a design choice: Amazon has found through research that they possess sufficient mindshare that their customers all know what they sell and how to reach it, and they don't need to prod people in the right direction to help them find books or movies or music. Instead, they can focus on building awareness of their newer cloud offerings.
- kevinburke 15y ago
  Stores put men's clothes on the upper floors and women's clothes near the door. This is because men go shopping to "buy clothes", not to "browse", but women can be lured into a store by an attractive display and nice racks of clothes on the first level. My guess is people buying books know what they want but there are a lot of customers who could be tempted into buying Amazon's cloud services.
saraid216 15y ago
Amazon: Who needs a keynote?
darrenkopp 15y ago
Who uses the navigation bar? Who wades through categories? All I use is the search bar, and that hasn't changed in years (except for the addition of automatic suggestions).
- teach 15y ago
  Maybe I'm anomalous, but I use the navigation bar EVERY DAY, because I check to see the free Android app and also check their discounted mp3 album and free mp3. Each one is one click away using the navbar. I prefer physical albums to mp3s, but if I can get a Grammy-award-winning album for $5, I'll live with mp3s.
thought_alarm 15y ago
They seem to be using "Appstore" as a proper name.
bretthellman 15y ago
Likely not a problem as most users search as a starting point. Would be interesting to see the data...
alimbada 15y ago
Not the same on the UK site.

46 points by dell9000 15y ago

It is similar to Google pushing its own services like Maps and Music results in Search. Also, Amazon may think that users looking for physical goods will stop and get enticed to its now impressive collection of digital stores.

esrauch 15y ago
I don't think that is a fair assessment; Google's core products are the links that are on the top of the google.com landing page. Amazon's core product is the sale of physical goods, they are just trying to stay on the leading edge of things and get a foothold in digital goods while the getting is still good. They know that being early to market is insanely important today, even a year delay can end up being the difference between Groupon and Google Deals. It's typically impossible to compete with an entrenched product by one of the big tech corps as they have the engineering man power to duplicate any improvement you make over their formula if you start depriving them of the tiniest portion of their user base.

6ren 15y ago

Just skimming the terms for their cloud drive, they have the right to increase the fees at any time, without notice, effective immediately; though it won't affect your service during its term. However, the "term" of the free service is not mentioned - I would expect it not to have a term. If they are going to promote a free service, and then scare you with a "binding contract" agreement (which indicates they are really serious about it), they should at least go to the trouble to assure you that they won't charge you for what they say is free. They also don't guarantee security or privacy - that's fair enough, pretty standard.

spiralganglion 15y ago

This seems somewhat tasteless. Surely there's a better way they could push their services on their physical-goods customers. If this is a response to iCloud, it's not a very "Apple-like" response. Then again, Amazon's cloud offerings aren't very "Apple-like" either, for better or for worse.

ghurlman 15y ago
It's hardly a response... it's been that way for a while.

bradleyland 15y ago

Amazon is the kind of company that spends a lot of resources understanding how visitors use their site. I'd venture that Amazon knows exactly what product categories are strong "browsers" and which are strong from an "inbound link" or "search" perspective. Browser - Customers come to amazon.com, click through to a category, and just browse Inbound link - Users are fed to a landing/product page by some other source (like a shopping engine or app) Search - Someone comes to amazon.com looking for a specific product an immediately places a search Understanding which categories are used by these different classes of user allows you to re-focus your primary navigation to maximize efficiency for each class. "Browsers" need categorical navigation. Notice that the top three (non cloud service) categories available for immediate browsing are all entertainment related. These are categories with a significant requirement for discovery; that is, visitors looking to discover new content.

dkarl 15y ago
I agree. I buy several items per month, and other than the Kindle store, I never realized any of those seven top items were on the front page anywhere. I'm as surprised to see them as anyone else even though I visited that page yesterday, today, and probably several times last week.

mithaler 15y ago

I'm willing to put an educated guess as to the reasoning behind such a design choice: Amazon has found through research that they possess sufficient mindshare that their customers all know what they sell and how to reach it, and they don't need to prod people in the right direction to help them find books or movies or music. Instead, they can focus on building awareness of their newer cloud offerings.

kevinburke 15y ago
Stores put men's clothes on the upper floors and women's clothes near the door. This is because men go shopping to "buy clothes", not to "browse", but women can be lured into a store by an attractive display and nice racks of clothes on the first level. My guess is people buying books know what they want but there are a lot of customers who could be tempted into buying Amazon's cloud services.

saraid216 15y ago

Amazon: Who needs a keynote?

darrenkopp 15y ago

Who uses the navigation bar? Who wades through categories? All I use is the search bar, and that hasn't changed in years (except for the addition of automatic suggestions).

teach 15y ago
Maybe I'm anomalous, but I use the navigation bar EVERY DAY, because I check to see the free Android app and also check their discounted mp3 album and free mp3. Each one is one click away using the navbar. I prefer physical albums to mp3s, but if I can get a Grammy-award-winning album for $5, I'll live with mp3s.

thought_alarm 15y ago

They seem to be using "Appstore" as a proper name.

bretthellman 15y ago

Likely not a problem as most users search as a starting point. Would be interesting to see the data...

alimbada 15y ago

Not the same on the UK site.