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Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

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Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#101

Post by WiseWeasel »

MiguelHudnandez wrote: post #57
radio4fan wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for that link. I love what he says about iteration: "I don't know for sure why the Microsoft solution is so clunky. It could be they just didn't do a good job of copying the Mac. More likely, they never tested and iterated. When Eric and I finished our first prototype, it was at least as clunky as Microsoft's solution. We, however, put ours through another four or five rounds of testing and design before we el…

I think perfect and mediocre are both enemies of good. "It complies with the spec... ship it."

Not of the same magnitude then. Mediocrity is the nemesis of good, with the sole mission of undermining it at every turn. The drive for perfection, on the other hand, might sometimes be a foe, but overall facilitates good. It's clear which is a more damaging influence.

Personally, I'll agree with Salvador Dali when he said, "Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it."

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#102

Post by jonknee »

revorad wrote: post #97
Nycto wrote: post #43

Hey all, I'm on the team that built this. We also built the redesign that launched last year. In fact, this was part of that. The article pretty much nails our implementation. Point of fact: Our team is recruiting. If you dig UX projects like this, shoot our manager Chad an email: chaddes at amazon dot com

Off-topic, but can't miss this opportunity: Please tell us why the Amazon homepage doesn't auto-focus into the search box. I think of this every single time I go to the site.

If I had to guess it would be that it doesn't test as well. Similarly to a physical store wanting you to browse, I can imagine Amazon wants you to look at the suggested items. If you wanted to search you will still search, but you might also get distracted and purchase something you were interested in.

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#103

Post by moron4hire »

moron4hire wrote: post #47
Dn_Ab wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure about that? The dot product gives a measure of the orientation between two vectors, the cross product gives perpendicularity and is vector valued (kind of, the distinction matters more for physics than graphics). It also only makes sense in 3 and 7 dimensions without generalizing the concept of vector.

Balls, you are correct, dot product is the correct operation, not cross product. Been a while since graphics ops were on my table. EDIT: Well, cross product would work, too, if you extended the 2D vectors into 3D vectors, coplanar in the screen. The orientation of the cross product into or out of the screen would also tell you the relative orientation of the two vectors. So then, you'd be looking for the two cross pr…

After some playing around, dot product won't do it. You can get close with dot product, but it really only gives you the general direction. Cross product (and really, only calculating the Z component of the cross product of coplanar 3D vectors) will get it exactly right every time.

So basically, for a moving between two mouse points (Ix, Iy) and (Ax, Ay), and a top left menu corner (Bx, By) and bottom left (Cx, Cy), then:

DAx = Ax - Ix

DAy = Ay - Iy

DBx = Bx - Ix

DBy = By - Iy

DCx = Cx - Ix

DCy = Cy - Iy

Z1 = DBx * DAy - DAx * DBy

Z2 = DCx * DAy - DAx * DCy

Then, you know you're headed towards that menu if Z1 0.

Could be simplified a little if you assume the X component of the top left corner of the menu will be the same as the X component of the bottom left corner, but the math was clearer to keep them separate.

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#104

Post by saraid216 »

beernutz wrote: post #100

Thank you for the write-up on this! Like you, that has been a pet-peeve of mine as well. I wonder if we can get a comment from Amazon or Nycto, on why the search box is not auto-focused though. This seems like such a natural thing to do, and saves your users a mouse move and click every time they come to the site.

I suspect that being forced to move your mouse to the search box pushes your eyes to scan the page as you do so, which increases the likelihood you'll find something interesting between your cursor and the search box.

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#105

Post by revorad »

jonknee wrote: post #102
revorad wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off-topic, but can't miss this opportunity: Please tell us why the Amazon homepage doesn't auto-focus into the search box. I think of this every single time I go to the site.

If I had to guess it would be that it doesn't test as well. Similarly to a physical store wanting you to browse, I can imagine Amazon wants you to look at the suggested items. If you wanted to search you will still search, but you might also get distracted and purchase something you were interested in.

That's what I came up with too. But on thinking deeper, it doesn't seem to hold true.

The kind of user who likes to browse will probably browse using a mouse, not a keyboard like us nerds. So the position of the cursor doesn't matter to them.

I hardly ever go to Amazon and not directly search for something (except maybe during Black Friday deals when I just click on the banner). I'd bet Amazon loses money by making me do an extra mouse click into the search box every time.

Unless there's a sizeable proportion of users who go to the homepage and scroll using the keyboard, I don't get it.

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#107

Post by lowboy »

revorad wrote: post #105
jonknee wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had to guess it would be that it doesn't test as well. Similarly to a physical store wanting you to browse, I can imagine Amazon wants you to look at the suggested items. If you wanted to search you will still search, but you might also get distracted and purchase something you were interested in.

That's what I came up with too. But on thinking deeper, it doesn't seem to hold true. The kind of user who likes to browse will probably browse using a mouse, not a keyboard like us nerds. So the position of the cursor doesn't matter to them. I hardly ever go to Amazon and not directly search for something (except maybe during Black Friday deals when I just click on the banner). I'd bet Amazon loses money by making m…

Seeing a blinking cursor and a potentially-highlighted search box (not for me on Chrome at least) might distract a portion of those users.

edit: Mouse movement = tracking content with eyes? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5333496

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#108

Post by moron4hire »

moron4hire wrote: post #103
moron4hire wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Balls, you are correct, dot product is the correct operation, not cross product. Been a while since graphics ops were on my table. EDIT: Well, cross product would work, too, if you extended the 2D vectors into 3D vectors, coplanar in the screen. The orientation of the cross product into or out of the screen would also tell you the relative orientation of the two vectors. So then, you'd be looking for the two cross pr…

After some playing around, dot product won't do it. You can get close with dot product, but it really only gives you the general direction. Cross product (and really, only calculating the Z component of the cross product of coplanar 3D vectors) will get it exactly right every time. So basically, for a moving between two mouse points (Ix, Iy) and (Ax, Ay), and a top left menu corner (Bx, By) and bottom left (Cx, Cy),…

And if you have any convex polygon as an ordered, circular list of points proceeding clockwise, then you can easily loop around the points checking your cross product values making sure they are all greater than 0 to determine if the point is in the polygon. You'll have to tessalate concave polygons into a list of convex polygons, but that's eaaaaaasy ;)

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#109

Post by [deleted] »

revorad wrote: post #105
jonknee wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had to guess it would be that it doesn't test as well. Similarly to a physical store wanting you to browse, I can imagine Amazon wants you to look at the suggested items. If you wanted to search you will still search, but you might also get distracted and purchase something you were interested in.

That's what I came up with too. But on thinking deeper, it doesn't seem to hold true. The kind of user who likes to browse will probably browse using a mouse, not a keyboard like us nerds. So the position of the cursor doesn't matter to them. I hardly ever go to Amazon and not directly search for something (except maybe during Black Friday deals when I just click on the banner). I'd bet Amazon loses money by making m…

[deleted]

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#110

Post by powermeat »

revorad wrote: post #105
jonknee wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had to guess it would be that it doesn't test as well. Similarly to a physical store wanting you to browse, I can imagine Amazon wants you to look at the suggested items. If you wanted to search you will still search, but you might also get distracted and purchase something you were interested in.

That's what I came up with too. But on thinking deeper, it doesn't seem to hold true. The kind of user who likes to browse will probably browse using a mouse, not a keyboard like us nerds. So the position of the cursor doesn't matter to them. I hardly ever go to Amazon and not directly search for something (except maybe during Black Friday deals when I just click on the banner). I'd bet Amazon loses money by making m…

You've gone to Amazon, had to do an extra click, and decided not to buy because of that?
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