Amazon and AJAX in Interface Design

Amazon has a good example of the selective and sensible use of AJAX type controls in an interface.  In various presentations on software design I often talk about using AJAX and Javascript wisely and sparingly. Too much and the rate of confusion and user error rises significantly.

On Amazon’s holiday-ready site they use Javascript pulldowns and mouseovers to show the user the different departments they can shop from. However when letting the user select different areas to search on, the site doesn’t automatically take the user anywhere. It lets the user manually select the specific area they want to go to, enter a search term, then click GO.

If a user knows exactly where they want to go its important to make sure they can get there unhindered. The interface shouldn’t try and guess what they want or, worse yet, mistakenly take the user somewhere they don’t want to be.  A good interface should show the user all the options available to them, then let them get there quickly and directly (and help them avoid any wrong turns).  Nice job Amazon.

          

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 18th, 2007 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Software and Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.