Amazon: Usability, Accessibility, and Ethics

Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

Overview

Amazon has emerged as a household name with its prominence in multiple areas of tech. The tech giant focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Originating as an online textbook retailer, Amazon has evolved its e-commerce site to showcase a wide variety of products. Prime shipping has become a prominent feature by Amazon. Consequently, fast shipping is turning into an expectation for online shoppers. A heavy emphasis has been placed on providing excellent customer service in order to have a positive relationship with its consumers.

Learnability

• Visibility and feedback: Amazon does a good job in this category by showing a progress bar in the header when the order is loading. On the web, loading images are present when products are being loaded on a product page. On the mobile app, users are provided with a pop-up notification and haptic feedback when an item is added to the cart.

Loading images for products provide users with visibility and feedback

• Consistency: the visual hierarchy throughout the web and mobile app is consistent and recognizable by users. Links are easily identifiable with a teal color. Product listings are consistent in its layout for users to easily view information (i.e. product name, price, Prime shipping availability).
• Help and documentation: access to the live chat is easily located in the mobile app by entering the menu and selecting Customer Service. Meanwhile, this information is more difficult to navigate on the web. In addition to having a different flow, the location of the live chat is difficult to find. It is buried in the Help topics and not emphasized.

Left: Users must navigate to the webpage footer and click “Help”. Right: Then users must hover over “Need More Help?” before being presented with the “Contact Us” option.

Memorability

• To further elaborate on the live chat, the differing flow to reach this action results in an increased memory burden for users. Switching from web to mobile requires the user to recall their steps, rather than recognizing the steps based on the interface.
• Amazon does a wonderful job of designing consistent buttons and call-to-actions (CTAs). Their primary and secondary buttons are easily differentiated and are consistent across devices. The sizing of buttons is appropriate to provide a large tap target, leading into Amazon’s accessibility features.
• The checkout process is extremely efficient. Regardless of the device, the information to place an order is consistent (i.e. payment method, shipping information, billing information, etc.). A minor difference to be noted on the web is the number label for each step to provide the user progress feedback. Users on the mobile app do not have this same feedback, however, the mobile checkout is intuitive and does not require this feedback.

Amazon checkout on the web

Satisfaction

• Amazon sends emails to users following a live chat. These surveys help users communicate to Amazon their experience. Amazon is also provided with insights on areas of improvement.
• A follow-up email is also sent to users in weeks following purchase. This email is a request for users to review that product and to leave feedback.

Accessibility

• Alexa integration is a great feature to facilitate inclusion for those with motor impairments, at which point voice commands are more functional. It appears that the Amazon mobile app has more accessibility features than its website. When users want to search, there is a voice search option; not found on the website.
• The image carousel on the web homepage can be overstimulating to certain users, as the images automatically change. Also, some of these images carry a vibrant color palette that may not be optimal for certain populations.
• The text line heights used on both mobile and web are appropriate for a pleasant reading experience.

Ethics and Dark Patterns

• Cancellation of the Prime membership is extremely difficult to locate. Users can access their Prime membership in the account menu, but when clicking on “Manage Membership” there is no further option to cancel.
• When users trial Prime, they are asked to enter their credit card information. Once the trial ends, the user is charged through that payment method unless they manually cancel it. This forced continuity can be frustrating for users who do not remember to cancel their trial in time.

Conclusion

Amazon’s success comes largely from a loyal consumer base. Their product utilizes design principles in a multitude of ways in order to achieve this loyalty. There are obviously many strong areas in Amazon’s design system, but there is certainly room for improvement.