I’m a big gadget nerd, and I like to take photos and have them all accurately tagged and geotagged, but that can be time consuming. So when a friend suggested I add the Eye-Fi Card to my Amazon wishlist, I decided to do just that. (This Eye-Fi technology is pretty cool, read about it in the New York Times.)
Amazon’s user experience sometimes leaves a bit to be desired, and today I ran across a good example. On this particular occasion, I didn’t happen to be signed in. I did a Google search for “Eye-fi card” and its Amazon listing was one of the first results.
I pulled up the page and noticed I wasn’t signed in at all, with a quick glance to the header:
The two options are “Sign in to get personalized recommendations” and “New customer? Start here.” Neither of those apply to me. I want to sign in, but I don’t want to be taken to my recommendations. I certainly don’t want to create a new account.
I noticed the “Add to wishlist” button was available, so I went ahead and clicked that to see if I could sign in from there:
This is geared towards a new user, letting someone get a wishlist started without first having to sign up for an account. Fine, but not what I’m looking for. A simple “Sign in” link in that first paragraph would have been easy enough to get me to where I wanted to be.
Alright, is there anywhere where I can just “Sign in?” I notice a link near the “Add to cart” button. “Sign in to turn on 1-click ordering.”
This makes me nervous. I don’t want to order the Eye-Fi card, I just want to add it to my wishlist, but it’s not clear what will happen when I click that link. Will it turn on 1-click ordering and all of a sudden I’m buying the $99 card?
I even tried clicking “My Account,” thinking it might take me to a sign in screen before showing me my account. It would have to, right? No, the way it’s set up is it takes you to the “My Account” page, which is a list of options like “Track Packages,” “Change billing address,” etc. Once you choose an option, you get to sign in on your way down the path you chose.
I get that, it’s a nice way to let people decide what they want to do before making them enter any personal information, but there is no way to get onto the “Add to wishlist” path without being signed in first. Just a simple link in the “Add to wishlist” dialog would do it.