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Hi Matt,
The layout of the Comboboxes is
uneven and unbalanced. It just ot harmonious. The first page takes
too looooong to load due to the big graphic.
The labelling of the comboboxes by
use of the default entry is attrocious. Definitely a candidate for
the Hall of Shame. It uses a well known control for a purpose
which it wasn't intended. The use of the multiple comboboxes is
just plain confusing. Why not a combobox for Geogrphic region and
a 2nd one for country. Or just plain and simple one combobox for
country. There are less than 200 entries at worst.
It gets better on the 2nd page,
though I hate frames. The top menu bar with Search, Shopping and
Help is good. The long 2nd level menu is also good. The went from
breadth rather than depth. Good. Subjects are as you would find in
a bookstore. Good. The 2nd level expanding to a third level is
unexpected. There was no affordance to imply that I was using a
tree control. The 3rd level expanding to a 4th level really
bothers me. Still no affordance that I was using a tree control
and no affordance to tell me whether I had a leaf or a branch.
Yuck!
I have spent several minutes on the
site and the main panel is still showing the intro help. Aweful!
At least the list is alphabetically
sorted.
Finally after 4 levels we have a hit.
It found 1 book under computer science for Java! Gee! So few.
There was no indication that I was doing a "Search" but
it now tells me that I have one hit for my "search".
Hmmm. And a huge graphic panel telling me that its sorted by "Author".
Sheer designer self-indulgence.
Pressing "Search" from the
top level menu. It took almost a minute to load the screen. The
number of fields is messy and confusing. There was too much
cognitive load to make a search decision. I search on "David
Taylor". See my recommended titles! Sorry. My search produce
no titles! And no suggestions either. Yuck!
I'll stick to Amazon.com!!!! :-)
Regards,
PS. Since writing this reply in
April, Wiley have redesigned the website addressing many of the
points I made to Matt at the time. Did somebody tell them? :-) |
