Amazon spend millions on improving customer experience and this is the best they can do.
In terms of simplicity, it’s way off. For example, the above is a section of the current home page – why do Power Balls take up so much real estate? Surely I don’t need to see every colour on the home page do I? On the right, I am being told to grab a sports watch and I see that two watches are contained within a box too large for them creating some odd whitespace. The array of starting points on the home page is baffling.
But it’s the right route – clearly. It would be interesting to be a fly on the way at one of their user focus groups when prototypes are being discussed. I would hasten a guess that almost every user present has a bias based around a certain expectation that this website should be messy – it’s the Jumble Sale effect.
When I think Amazon, I think millions of products at discount prices. How often have you found a traditional bricks and mortar shop offering a similar service which has every product stacked neatly in clear sections?
If web design was simply a case of working with potential users to prototype and produce the simplest online experience possible, it wouldn’t be that tricky really.