Amazon iOS App UI Problems
28 January 2012
Neven Mrgan criticising the Amazon iOS app’s search bar:
The starting view promises that it includes a search field, and that when you tap it you will begin to type in it. But it’s all an illusion; that’s not a search field at all. It’s an active area which, when tapped, displays another, differently laid-out view. It’s a button.
I use the Amazon app, and the non-standard behaviour of its search field sometimes confuses me.
Mrgan goes on:
Not every app is made up of stock table-views and tab bars. Getting a bit more custom with the UI is cool. However, breaking user expectations isn’t.
The app continues breaking expectations with its ‘Recommended for you’ panel in the middle of the home screen, which can be horizontally swiped to reveal more recommended products. I discovered this feature by accident and have never clicked a recomendation because I use the app to search for something and then buy it.
Contrast this with the Apple Store app, which only uses horizontal swipe controls on full-screen product image galleries. This is consistent with my expectations for an iOS application: When an app’s chrome fades away I understand that the content is horizontally swipeable because that’s the same behaviour as the built-in Photos app.
Neven suggests a fix for the search problem:
How can this be fixed? In Amazon’s case, the search field should be a real search field, glued to the top of the view.
I agree.
To fix the ‘Recommended for you’ panel I suggest removing it from the home screen altogether. Recommendations are already available from the ‘More…’ section of the navigation bar. Removing the panel would free up valuable home screen real-estate where higher value products could be promoted more prominently.