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Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

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Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#171

Post by MichaelApproved »

salvadors wrote: post #137
MichaelApproved wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't want to capture the space key because you'll need that in search queries but the arrow keys sound like an idea for those interested in accommodating both cases.

You pretty much never want a space at the start of your search query though, so you could DTRT based on whether there's preceding text there or not.

Good point but I think it's now coming to a point where confusion might come into play. It's a balance between inconveniencing someone with auto focus and confusing someone else.

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#172

Post by rplnt »

ww520 wrote: post #136
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.

Please DO NOT listen to this guy. This auto-focus to the search box misfeature absolutely ruins any page viewing navigation. For people who use up/down arrow or pgup/pgdown keys to scroll down the page (which is pretty much all laptop users), this focus stealing misfeature would frustrate them to no end. I won't go back to any site that does this.

Not to mention any sort of single-key navigation. What is important though is that TAB should work and focus the important fields in the correct order.

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#173

Post by zorbo »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #165
enraged_camel wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree completely. The fact that Amazon does not auto-focus to the search box annoys me greatly, since 99% of the time I find the items I'm looking for via search. Compared to Google, Youtube, etc. Amazon feels clunky.

Try keyword search on Firefox: "a foo" to search on amazon, "g foo" google, "i foo" imdb, "m foo" google maps, "w foo" wikipedia, "u foo" urbandictionary, etc... I have more but they are not public sites.

Chrome automatically recognizes searches on sites, so that you can just type "ama[TAB]" in de URL bar, and it will give you a site-specific search straight in the URL bar (provided that "ama" auto-completes to "amazon.com" for you, naturally). This works for basically every site you've ever visited that has search functionality. It's pretty decent.

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#174

Post by DustinCalim »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #87
calhoun137 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, "getting away" with something by relying on someone else to know what you don't know but need to use is hardly a virtue. If someone wants to work like that, to each his own. The problem I have is people telling the next generation that since you can "get away" without math, that it isn't important to take it very seriously as a programmer. Second of all, like you said, you can get the "hack" done withou…

It's not a virtue to not know matrix algebra, but it's not particularly un-virtuous either. I have great respect for mathy engineers, but I also know the world needs its Jobs's and its Wozniak's, and it needs them to work together.

This is very wise +1

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#175

Post by revorad »

ww520 wrote: post #136
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.

Please DO NOT listen to this guy. This auto-focus to the search box misfeature absolutely ruins any page viewing navigation. For people who use up/down arrow or pgup/pgdown keys to scroll down the page (which is pretty much all laptop users), this focus stealing misfeature would frustrate them to no end. I won't go back to any site that does this.

Please DO NOT listen to this guy.

Steady on, soldier. I just asked a question.

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#176

Post by bruceboughton »

It's funny to see this level of attention to detail. I've always found Amazon to be one of the worst designed websites outside of the checkout process, and not from a prettiness point of view. I'm convinced their success is purely due to a smooth checkout process, superior customer service (easy refunds, Amazon Locker, etc.) and price.

Amazon never makes we want to buy anything. I only buy if I go there knowing what I want. Browsing (as in shop browsing) is broken, the suggestions are inane (you've just bought a white 3m network cable, why not buy a blue 5m one?) and the search tools are lacklustre (can't sort by price until you choose one of three plausible departments your product falls into).

I have a Kindle and often go to their website looking for a book to buy. This experience sucks. If I go to Waterstones on the high street, they have both a relatively good depth of inventory but also attractively laid out tables of books grouped by subject. I invariably find 2 or 3 books that I like the look of. Unfortunately for Waterstones, physical books are not what I want (I live in London. Space is not plentiful).

Amazon the store front sucks. Amazon the check-out is awesome.

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#177

Post by [deleted] »

pydave wrote: post #125
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.

I don't want this as much as making / jump to the search box. I wish everything did this (I think only gmail and vim do). Although, that might interfere with Firefox (at one point it had an option to open the find dropdown when you type /).

[deleted]

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#178

Post by lhnn »

lancewiggs wrote: post #167
dylangs1030 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You honestly find the demonstration in this link to be too many steps? It takes less than a second to navigate. Literally.

Yes. It drives me batshit crazy, and I avoid using these menus, and it decreases my propensity to use sites that depend on them. To me a menu should be simple. If I click on something I expect to go somewhere, not have my screen taken over. Short takeaway - we are all different, us users, and what someone thinks is awesome design, someone else finds unusable. So providing multiple options is a must.

>If I click on something I expect to go somewhere

You are going somewhere. To the instant mini-view of what would have been an entire page in 1999: More navigation and drill-down.

> So providing multiple options is a must

Not all opinions are equal in quality/quantity, and this ain't government.

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#179

Post by oftenwrong »

b3n wrote: post #126
cowpewter wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/rant I loathe online store sites that auto-focus the search box. Worst are the ones that do it on every single page, including item detail pages. I use the space bar to scroll webpages down, especially on my laptop, which has a very small screen so that I almost always have to scroll down to get past header crap and get to the meat of the page. And no mouse, just a mediocre touchpad. I can maybe accept auto-focusing…

You can always disable auto-focus on the client side if you don't like it. I have 'focuscontent' set in Vimperator which will "Focus the content after a page has loaded. [...] When on, it blurs any textbox which often is automatically focused on page load." I'm sure there are similar extensions for your browser of choice.

>You can always disable auto-focus on the client side if you don't like it.

Spoken like a true hacker.

Too often a site discussed on HN is criticized for a design decision that is easily changeable on the client. Anything that is slightly inconvenient for one specific workflow is a "misfeature", ignoring entirely that many people like it that way. A site designer cannot please everyone.

Most non-hackers do not even notice this stuff. Go find a normal person and ask them to list the sites they visit and whether or not they auto-focus the search box. They do not notice. We are the weird ones.

If it annoys you, change it. You have the power. Most of the time what you want can be accomplished with a simple extension, no coding required.

If not, you can write your own extension, or write a script for an extension, or "use" browsers like uzbl and luakit, or write your own browser. Then you can put your solution on the web, so other people can benefit.

Re: Breaking down Amazon's mega dropdown

#180

Post by okamiueru »

saraid216 wrote: post #154
jschuur wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's perfectly valid to ask a question, even if you know the other side can't answer it. That doesn't mean we should give the engineers who come to this time a hard time about not answering it. It's just a legitimate thing to ask out loud.

Hm. I'm going to disagree. If you know the engineer can't answer it, it's silly at best to ask it. At worst, it's malicious. See http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/JAQing_off (If you don't know that, then there's no problem and a quick explanation why it's not worth asking should end the thread. It's not something I'd take someone to task for.)

Huh? What on earth are you talking about? Nothing you wrote makes sense. Someone asked a question on the merits of a patent, the likelihood of it being upheld if challenged, if it is at all patented, etc.

What you are referring to is anti-intellectualism, to ask questions for the effect of the question itself. Hiding behind the hypothetical, and not for the desire to know the answer. The root question here wanted to know an answer, not play any game.

"Silly at best to ask it"? Again, what on earth are you talking about? If people have an insight to give, they will give it.

"Not something i"d take someone to task for"? Do usually tell people the things you don't feel like doing?

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