For all that Amazon.com does, and the sheer size of their audience, you’d think they would be very careful about the design decisions that go into their website.  I’ve used Amazon rarely over the past three years, but lately more often, and I found that parts of their site design — especially their login — make no sense to me.

All I Want to do is Sign In

Try this: pull up amazon.com and any other website you subscribe to.  I’ll be dimes to dollars the other site’s login will be labeled “Login” or “Sign In” or something similar. Its the convention after all, is it not?  Amazon, for whatever reason has chosen a different route.

Amazon.com's Masthead and Login Links

If I’m wanting to login to amazon.com, what should I click on? My first thought is the words “Sign in” but lo-and-behold there is no link.  “Personalized recommendations” is a link but I’m wanting to sign in, not get recommendations, so that doesn’t seem like the right choice. “Your Account” is a link but I’m not logged in yet so how could it know my account?  Does this seem confusing to anyone else?

Can I Sign In Here?

As it turns out, either “personalized settings” or “your account” will take you to a page where you can login, but wow are they different.  First, let’s look at the page that the “personalized recommendations” link pulls up.

Amazon.com's Sign In / Sign Up form

So it looks like we’ve found the sign in form. I won’t go into every reason why this is a poorly designed form, go check out this post by Jake Behrens if you’re interested, but I will say that Amazon has gone out of their way to make a simple login form overly complicated.

It should be immediately obvious that this form is pulling double duty as a sign in and sign up form.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the way Amazon has presented it makes me have to think, and a web form’s purpose should be so obvious that thought is not required. Fine, whatever, I can login, so I do and I’m taken to … you guessed it … a page full of recommendations.  Well I can’t say I’m surprised, I did click on a link that said “personalized recommendations” after all.  Of course, now I might need to back track to the page I was trying to view before I tried to sign up and I can see where some users would find this annoying (I know I did the first time it happened).

Ok, What About Here?

So what happens if I try to login by clicking on the “your account” link instead of the “personalized settings” link.

Amazon.com's Your Account Page

No surprises here. Clicking on “Your Account” pulls up an account management page.  Now I have a nice little sign-in form in the right-hand column. Awesome, but its a little confusing to go to an account management page in order to login.  Its more intuitive to login, THEN go to an account management page.

Wait, What About These Pages?

Clicking around Amazon’s site while not logged turned up two more login related examples that merit some criticism.  First, clicking on the “Your Lists” link while not signed in pulls up the following page:

Amazon.com's Your Lists Page

Hmm. Ok Amazon, I’ve already seen an example of a page that provides me a login form ON the page, why are you making me click a link to go to some other page to login?  You’ve already set my expectations and now you’re doing something different.

The “Your Lists” link is not the only example of this, try clicking on the “Gift Organizer” link and you’ll see this page with the same problem:

Amazon.com's Gift Organizer Page

There may be other examples of inconsistency on the site but I stopped with just these two.

Signing Out of Amazon

After having outlined the issues with logging into Amazon.com its probably a good idea to take a brief look at logging out of the site.  Go on a try it, login to the site by any of the methods they provide.  Once you’re logged in look at the masthead.  There is no log out or sign out link, is there? Instead you have a link inside parenthesis asking if you are not yourself.  If you click it, you will be logged off the site. While schizophrenics may find some merit in this wording, I find it ridiculous.  Amazon is essentially asking me to lie about who I am in order to log off of their site. I’ll chalk this little snafu up to the likelihood of some marketer/advertiser wanting to keep their users always logged in. A seasoned developer surely wouldn’t make this kind of a mistake, right?

Suggestions for Amazon

I don’t want to just criticize with out offering some constructive suggestions.  So, Amazon, if you’re listening, you might think about making the following changes to improve your login forms.

1. Provide a login form in your masthead.  This is a trend that is fast becoming the standard and it really makes sense. Let your users login on the page they are viewing and still remain on that page.
2. In lieu of my first suggestion, re-label at least one of your links “Login” or “Sign In”. Its convention and its what people are expecting to see.
3. I understand the value in a page that lets a user sign in or sign up, but make these seperate forms. Use the simplified login form currently located in the far right-hand column of the page that clicking “your account” pulls up, and build a seperate form for new sign ups.  Your users will appreciate the consistent look and feel of your sign in form.
4. Don’t provide a link to go to the sign in page, just show the form.  You have already created this expectation by providing the form in the right hand column of several other pages.
5. Re-label “not [username]” to sign out.  Seriously, I know who I am, don’t make me lie to log out of your site.

Thanks for listening.