Monday 22 February 2010

The long way round is the wrong way round



I'm glad Amazon added the option of "Add to wish list" to their product pages.

Before it was necessary to go into "Wish lists", search for your own list (yes, search!), search for the product (again)...

Well, this was all a few months ago and I can't remember the details, but I know it was a hassle and a chore, - requiring a high level of motivation from the user. - Exactly what not to do if you want someone to use "social web" tools and functions.

So, at least now they show the "add to wish list" on the product page.
It's a lot more comfortable. And there is a drop down if you have more than one wish list. I have a work-related one, a fiction list and another list related to a separate hobby, but could easily have a public "What to buy me for my birthday" list, or a private "gift ideas for grandma" list.

Unfortunately, one big niggle is that if I buy a product, the wish list doesn't automatically update the quantities "desired" and "received", so you have to go through the list manually. The long way round.

Worse still, I often - unintentionally - try to add new reading recommendations I receive to my long wish list, but which, it turns out, I already added and, as a result, see the nonsensical error message:

"Your wish list has been updated.
You specified one or more items that are already on your list."




Please Amazon:

1. Don't let me try to add the same product to my list twice. It's a lot of clicking and time-wasting.

My ideal solution: Show me which books are already on my wish list on the product detail page. The module is already on the page, but should say "Already added to wish list" or "On your list". Also, on the search results page it would be handy to have an icon or something saying "This is on your wish list".

2. If it is even possible to add more than one book at a time, that could be cool, so tell me about it. I dont recall seeing any way to do that.

3. Please, please, please update my wish lists for me when I buy stuff, or at least suggest that I do it. You could send me an email and say, “hey, do you want this list updating?”.