Module 3+4 Second Post

In amazon, contact information is only available to members, from what I could determine. It doesn’t list a webmaster, as it’s big enough to afford an in-house web team. No geographic location is listed for amazon, as it is online-only.

There is no text option. Or, if there is, it is nowhere I could find, and I’ve been going to this site for years. The text is a clearly legible sans serif font, decent-sized, against a white background. Rather web 1.0, but readable, and not intimidating. The links are blue text, and as such are easily discernible from regular text.

Most CD’s have audio samples, and the quality is about a B- level. The designers seem to be trying to accommodate all levels of users.

I would definitely not call this web 2.0, but I would hesitate to call it web 1.0, either. Maybe 1.5? The white background, the black text, the blue hypertext; all these are pretty last-generation. But the design has been updated; the navigation is a pop-up style window in addition to the traditional menu bar. If it is web 1.0, it’s the best web 1.0 out there I know of.

The site does require plug-ins. Since I downloaded them so long ago, I can’t remember specifically, but I believe it requires java, and realplayer for the audio files. These are the only options. As mentioned before, the designers are definitely trying to accommodate viewers with older machines, or ones with less experience on the web, and since you can tell your browser to download plug-ins automatically, it’s a pretty user-friendly site. Newcomers should have no problem finding what they need. Any improvements that could be made would be in the areas of shortening and simplifying the department homepages, and maybe removing all the extra stuff at the bottom of the page that no one looks at. It would save on load times an cut down on bandwidth usage, which would be especially helpful this time year. Last Christmas, they shipped something in the neighborhood of nearly 100 million orders.

Module 3+4 Post (a bit late on account of having to make a last-minute drive into Dallas. I hope you understand)

Websites:
www.amazon.com (main site)
www.BN.com

For starters, the basics:
Amazon is probably the industry leader in online sales of books, music, and movies. The navigation is intuitive, with search bars and menu options all located within a few inches of the center. Its search feature is accurate, always returning relevant results. The home page can be returned to from anywhere by clicking on amazon's logo, located at the top center. It's impossible to get lost, since every page is either a product page, a search page, or the home page of a department or amazon itself.

It's main design is all about open spaces and softer, muted colors. It's rather stark, but at the same time, that can be a good thing. Amazon is a huge store, and to the unitiated, can seem rather intimidating. I wouldn't personally know, but I'm sure this can be very helpful to a certain group of people. To people who expect a little more flash and dash, it would be a disappointment.

The organization is good. Not great, but good. There are simply too many thing sold here for the front page not to be a little cluttered. However, to its credit, all it takes to find anything sold is typing it's name, and one or two clicks.

On a day-to-day basis, there is no organizational change to speak of at amazon. They update their bestselling lists on an hourly basis, and reviews are posted frequently, but not much else happens. However, recently, they made a minor cosmetic change for the christmas holiday. Enough to keep readers coming back? Not so sure. The technical specs of upcoming products are kpt up-to-date, but most people I imagine would be going to more interest-specific sites for those.

Barnes & Nobles' site, on the other hand, is a bit of a mess. The top-of-the-page navigation has taken a tip from amazon, with a the logo on top, a list of categories below that, and then a search bar. The individual section pages, however, are rather short, something amazon could look into. Actually, I think this is one area where BN actually outshines amazon. It's got amazon's intuitive ease of use, but without the scrolling and clutter.

The presentation, on the other hand, is really lacking. The colors are flat, and the top navigation takes up too much space; a lot of stuff has to be scrolled down to see. And all that is without mentioning that for some reason, the entire right of the screen is blank. The navigation bar ends, the right-side edge of the side stops; then website looks like it was designed to work in a window that doesn't take up the whole monitor. However, almost no one does this, and the site looks really uninviting the way it is.

Organization is another area that needs improvement. The main page is trying to show off, but it just looks cluttered. Most of all the pages are chopped off. If they widened the page to cover the entire page, they could eliminate this problem.

The site is not up-to-date. I tried searching for several books, and in addition to returning several pages of entirely irrelevant results, it said that the books were out of print when they were, in fact not. The publisher had simply switched to a new edition. BN made no mention of the new edition anywhere.

Amazon has its organization, ease of use, and appreoachable feel to its credit, and BN has won the navigation war. Amazon could definately take a cue from BN and make their department pages shorter (amazon's music section, for example, is roughly four times longer).

My opinion of amazon didn't really change that much, other than gaining a clearer view of exactly how little goes on there. However, I don't go there for the design, I go there for the prices and because I trust them. My feelings about BN, on the other hand, went from indifferent to frustrated. I think they could be more competitive if they would just tweak a few things. Make their site full screen, stay up-to-date with new editions, maybe change the color scheme. As far as how the sites themselves changed, they didn't, really. They both put up some holiday-specific graphics and sales, but it's really more like putting a different coat of paint on something that would have been there. BN did the same thing. Amazon stayed up-to-date, BN dropped the ball on a few things, but got all but two of the new products I checked for up pretty shortly after midnight.

As mentioned earlier, amazon didn't really make too many changes other than updating bestseller lists and changing newly-released products' pages from listing a release date and taking preorders to taking orders. And of the changes that were made, none were anything other than superficial graphics slapped on in preparation for the holiday shopping season.