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Site Comment of Apple Store

by Kristoffer Bohmann, September 20, 2000

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1-click ordering is not enough to optimize the ordering process.

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Well, I guess 1-click ordering is just not good enough. Apple Store makes several usability mistakes, including:

• Apple Store homepage: It is not obvious to the user that he is in the Apple Store. The store logo should be more visible and located in the left side, not right side.
• Response times are slow due to heavy use of graphics.
• Headers are graphical elements. Styled text is better because it is scalable and downloads faster.
• Links are replaced with fancy buttons making it difficult to see exactly where to click.
• Configuring computers is made extremely complex. Choosing computer functionalities from long forms is a usability nightmare. Fewer options and radio buttons and check boxes would have been better in most cases. The entire configuration process is further disturbed by lots of irrelevant pictures of monitors and other deliverables.
• Back button doesn't always work. I was unable to move from Apple Store and back to Apple.com. Pretty nasty mistake!
• General navigation is used despite the fact that users rarely take time to learn about site structures. General navigation options should be available from the homepage only to focus user attention on sub-pages.

About the Author Kristoffer Bohmann (biography) M.Sc. thinks and writes about high-quality user experiences. His philosophy: Users first. You can contact him at kb@bohmannusability.com.

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