Chapter 1 of “Don’t Make Me Think” will have readers realizing just how effective and non effective a web page can be. Last week I visited an effective website called Amazon.
Amazon is a very simple looking website compared to most but because of it’s simplicity, I find it pleasing to look at. At the top center of the page you have your search bar, which is nice and big instead of off to the right in a small corner like most websites have them. Since the search bar is the first thing you see when the page pops up, it literally takes you a couple seconds to search for what you want. I went looking for a 521 Nokia Lumia phone case. It took about two seconds for the page to navigate to another page with a list of results.
On this page you are shown several different options varying in price, color and style. I didn’t have to use the “Shop by Department” drop box, on the top left hand side, because Amazon took me exactly where I wanted to go by using my key words. What I didn’t know, however, was exactly which case I wanted to purchase. So what I did was narrow down my search results by using the “refine by” column on the left side of the page. Free Shipping by Amazon: check, Condition: new (check), Price: $0 to $5…GO (check).
There is one thing that I wish Amazon would improve. One thing that wasn’t the greatest while narrowing down my results was that for each refining I checked, the page would reload itself with new results. I checked off three things to narrow down my search and the page reloaded 3 times with different results from the last. Chapter 1 of “Don’t Make Me Think” mentions several times that web users are “usually in a hurry” which is true in most causes! So I think it was a poor choice to have the page keep reloading every time a customer clicked an option that narrowed down their result.
I think it would have been more efficient if you could click all the things you want and then have the page refresh it self. Other than the page reloading several times, the website is pretty much the closet thing you’ll get to easy, online shopping. The check out process was simple and easy. Users of all age and web experiences can operate amazon.com with just a few clicks here and there. Never once did I get frustrated or question, “What is this” or “where should I go”, like Chapter 1 suggested web users do. The simplicity of Amazon’s layout makes it pretty easy to find what you’re looking for.