The design team over at Amazon.com needs to up their medication.

February 2, 2000 9:22 AM

The design team over at Amazon.com needs to up their medication. What was once the most tabbed-interface on the web, but still quite useful, is now a raging mess of yahoo-category-style links that are all the same color. This reminds me of the altavista redesign a few months back. I wonder if they'll lose some customers on this one.
posted by mathowie (10 comments total)

I still like Amazon for it's user reviews and it's competitive prices, but I held them in much higher esteem before they decided to become the all-things-e-commerce portal. Soon they'll be splitting up into sub-companies and redesigning the front page to look like ShopNow.com
posted by sixfoot6 at 9:46 AM on February 2, 2000

If you explore the amazon site, you get the old interface inside. Will the new design spread through the site like a virus, or will they leave it at the front to serve as a sort of "usability wall" to keep people out?
posted by mathowie at 9:49 AM on February 2, 2000

Ugh. I couldn't even distinguish the text from the links. That's just so wrong.
posted by othermatt at 9:51 AM on February 2, 2000

What a great marketing scheme: create a convienient and comfortable way to shop for quality products, then wrap it up in shroud of confusing links and unnecessary information to keep out the "undesireables". Hopefully the virus will infect most of the online shopping world, so we can get on with our lives.
posted by sixfoot6 at 9:57 AM on February 2, 2000

News.Com just posted a short story about the new test front page. They said it was being served up at random and is a test page. I haven't seen it after a few refreshes in IE... any chance you could post a cropped screenshot Matt?
posted by tomalak at 10:09 AM on February 2, 2000

Ask and ye shall receive. Sorry I forgot to include that. I just did a link count on that, and there's 129 links on the front page. 129. Think about that when it's time to narrow your choices down.
posted by mathowie at 10:30 AM on February 2, 2000

Blah!
Blah Blah Blah!

"Our interface is being copied by everyone, so that means it must be a really intuitive, easy to use design. Let's see if we can fix that."
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 10:34 AM on February 2, 2000

Aw, c'mon, have you ever actually had a problem finding something you wanted on that site? I haven't. General flow on the site is still pretty damn good. And that Wish List function...man, it's a killer. Now, if I was a web newbie, then it might be a different story.
posted by lbergstr at 10:56 AM on February 2, 2000

Oh thank heavens, I thought I was going crazy, didn't see anything different & was immediately convinced how crap I am for not being able to notice a change of design!

Amazon used to look so classy. Every redesign it gets uglier. What a shame.
posted by prolific at 12:31 PM on February 2, 2000

ugh. if they keep this, i will never forgive them for moving the search box out of the upper left. i've been programmed. how can they say "hey, our users have been used to the search being in the upper left, let's give them some variety and move it around. oh and while we're at it we'll create an alphabetical list so they have to *read* before they jump to a section."?
posted by brig at 3:22 PM on February 2, 2000