[Sigia-l] RE: favorites / groans

[Trenouth, John]

I would like to nominate Amazon for worst IA in support of browsing.  

Let's say you want to see all the full length albums Fleetwood Mac have
released.  You select "Popular Music" from the search dropdown.  The you
type "Feetwood Mac" into the field and click "Go".

Amazon responds with the top three albums and then the next 256 results.
Sure they made a lot of albums, but you know they didn't make 256.
Furthermore, why are the top 3 the top 3?  What criteria made that
decision?  And 2 of the 3 are "best of" cds and not original albums.
Many of the 256 other results are not even albums.  How do you then
filter this list to give you what you are looking for: just the albums,
hopefully in chronological order.

With Amazon, its simply impossible.  Not because the your need is too
complex.  But because their IA willfully prevents it.

I am constantly shocked at how frustrating the browsing-shopping
experience is at Amazon.  And just when I think it can't get any worse,
it does (seeing product details above the fold was very helpful compared
with having to hunt them at some random position below the fold--sure
not everything can be above the fold, but product details are pretty
crucial to help decide if this is in fact the product you want to spend
more time with). 

> We're compiling a set of "best" and "worst" examples of all 
> varieties of IA/ interaction design/ uex on the web for 
> in-house discussions, brainstorming, comparisons, etc.  If you've 
> got a suggestion: a favorite site overall, a piece of functionality 
> that's great, or even a site that makes you groan/ shake your head,
> please send along a url offlist.  If there's interest, I'll post a 
> summary.
>
> Thanks!
> Lisa