November 13, 2002
Amazon about to loose good guy status

Amazon.com is about to loose it's long time standing good guy status when it comes to usable and information rich websites. The many shops, the decision to complicate life for us book-buyers by making book search a two-click operation instead of a one-click operation, the terrible "Your Gold Box" idea were all nails in the coffin for the usability of the site - whereas "The page you made" and 'See Inside' vindicated the site. The latest attempt at upsale linkage is particularly lame and insensitive to what the user is actually interested in. You're now getting suggestions from the apparel store when you're browsing for books. Seen many underwear/book stores on your local high-street lately ? Didn't think so (although I guess FNAC actually does this with some success). An example of how stupid this looks: Do they really think that the average buyer of The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design: An Application Design Guide would want to buy pink cheetah print slippers in girl sizes - as was suggested to me when I looked up the book. No. Misdirected efforts at tailormade information make really intrusive advertising ploys - not much better than spam. Intrusive advertising makes enemies - at least one, anyway.

Posted by Claus at November 13, 2002 06:34 PM
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