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Amazon.com is likely the most a/b tested piece of software on the planet. It is ugly and clunky because that's what _works_ - same with Alibaba and Yahoo JP.

ikrenji 4y ago
i read somewhere that bezos personally controls the look and feel of amazon and thats why it looks like that. some amazon UX/UI director even quit over it
- thomasjudge 4y ago
  Probably not so much anymore..
abvdj2 4y ago
That is not true, some parts might be clunky because that works, but there's also many parts that are clunky simply because it's hard to make a change without breaking anything. But amazon doesn't care due to their strong position in the market and because AWS is their cash-cow anyways.
robertlagrant 4y ago
It's ugly and clunky because a) Jeff used to guard it fiercely, b) because a/b testing is not guaranteed to get the best results, and c) you might just be on the "ugly" a/b test.
okyanusoz 4y ago
They could make the UI better if they wanted to, but they don't, because of reliability. For most enterprises, if it works, don't touch it.
the_cat_kittles 4y ago
its not what works, its whats good enough, or not bad enough to cause an obvious problem. well maybe thats what you mean by "works" i dunno
hk__2 4y ago
> Amazon.com is likely the most a/b tested piece of software on the planet. It is ugly and clunky because that's what _works_ - same with Alibaba and Yahoo JP. This was on the HN frontpage yesterday: "Be good-argument-driven, not data-driven" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32651763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32651763 I’ve seen countless bad decisions being taken because the A/B test was badly done. You can’t assume that some decision was good JUST because they A/B-tested it.
franczesko 4y ago
"It is ugly and clunky because that's what _works_" It's a legacy code nightmare, but customers are used to it and this is #1 reason why it will not be changed anytime soon.
- lupire 4y ago
  It's been ugly forever, and there have been several wholesale rewrites (C++ -> Perl -> Java, and JavaScript and whatever is in native apps)
avgDev 4y ago
Amazon ios app is pretty trash. I keep getting blank white screens, it has been this way for months. https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/tto68z/anyone_else_getting_a_blank_white_screen_on_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/tto68z/anyone_else_get...

ikrenji 4y ago

i read somewhere that bezos personally controls the look and feel of amazon and thats why it looks like that. some amazon UX/UI director even quit over it

thomasjudge 4y ago
Probably not so much anymore..

abvdj2 4y ago

That is not true, some parts might be clunky because that works, but there's also many parts that are clunky simply because it's hard to make a change without breaking anything. But amazon doesn't care due to their strong position in the market and because AWS is their cash-cow anyways.

robertlagrant 4y ago

It's ugly and clunky because a) Jeff used to guard it fiercely, b) because a/b testing is not guaranteed to get the best results, and c) you might just be on the "ugly" a/b test.

okyanusoz 4y ago

They could make the UI better if they wanted to, but they don't, because of reliability. For most enterprises, if it works, don't touch it.

the_cat_kittles 4y ago

its not what works, its whats good enough, or not bad enough to cause an obvious problem. well maybe thats what you mean by "works" i dunno

hk__2 4y ago

> Amazon.com is likely the most a/b tested piece of software on the planet. It is ugly and clunky because that's what _works_ - same with Alibaba and Yahoo JP. This was on the HN frontpage yesterday: "Be good-argument-driven, not data-driven" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32651763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32651763 I’ve seen countless bad decisions being taken because the A/B test was badly done. You can’t assume that some decision was good JUST because they A/B-tested it.

franczesko 4y ago

"It is ugly and clunky because that's what _works_" It's a legacy code nightmare, but customers are used to it and this is #1 reason why it will not be changed anytime soon.

lupire 4y ago
It's been ugly forever, and there have been several wholesale rewrites (C++ -> Perl -> Java, and JavaScript and whatever is in native apps)

avgDev 4y ago

Amazon ios app is pretty trash. I keep getting blank white screens, it has been this way for months. https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/tto68z/anyone_else_getting_a_blank_white_screen_on_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/tto68z/anyone_else_get...