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Part 1: Travelling the Amazon

June 30th, 2010

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

With web trends dipping and diving into new avenues every day, and with the increasingly rapid evolution of technology in online shopping, there’s one website out there that has seemed to weather every storm and, in many cases, set the trends themselves.

There’s no questioning Amazon’s place in e-commerce history. They’ve been among the pioneers since the very beginning. Their very first business model was simply to be an online bookstore in the mid-1990’s. The Amazon brand has since expanded into selling everything from A-to-Z, just as their latest logo incarnation says.

The latest Amazon logo is giving us a nice big smile – likely because he’s not having to sell used vacuum cleaners door-to-door like most CEOs from the dot-com bust era… although they probably have a section for that on the website, somewhere.

In addition from going A-to-Z, the latest version of the Amazon logo is also giving us a nice big smile – likely because he’s not having to sell used vacuum cleaners door-to-door like most CEOs from the dot-com bust era… although they probably have a section for that on the website, somewhere.

With the web seemingly shape-shifting and undergoing massive face lifts at every corner and around every turn, though, it’s strikingly odd just how little Amazon has changed over the years. They’ve stuck to their guns and, due to their growing popularity, have managed to entrench many web trends that we still see today.

amazon2000

For starters, Amazon is still one of the few websites out there that uses a fluid layout. They still use it today as they did in 2000 and beyond. What this means is that rather than having a fixed width website that is either left, center or right aligned in your browser that allows space for repetitive backgrounds, a fluid layout takes advantage of the entire browser window – maximizing real estate. Another trend that can be traced back to Amazon is the use of the tab menu system. Amazon popularized the easy to navigate series of folder tabs that allow you navigate the numerous color coded categories of the site without getting lost and having to constantly return to the homepage. You’ll also notice the lack of imagery and graphics, showing a sign of the times when dial-up modems took 7 years to load a JPEG the size of a postage stamp. They’ve kept images (for the most part) strictly for logos and product. You’ll notice as we go that this is a recurring theme.

Check out the live working page by clicking here (Wayback Machine)

amazon2004

Four years have gone by and not much has changed. The tab system still exists, with a bit of extra navigation remaining on the left and right hand sides. The product has remained the focal point as Amazon hasn’t resorted to a slew of graphic banners and blinking animations that turn the page into the Griswold family Christmas tree. It’s simple, the way it should be – and they’ve stuck to it.

Check out the live working page by clicking here (Wayback Machine)

Since its inception in the mid-90’s and onward into the mid-2000’s, Amazon has remained relatively the same. The focus has always been on content and not on making it look good. A good product will sell itself and it looks like they’ve taken that to heart. It’s fairly refreshing to see a website keep such simplicity and yet still be extremely effective. As we’ll see in the second half of this study, however, there are bound to be changes at some point, and we begin to see a few changes in the way Amazon presents its information.

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Posted in Branding Reviews on June 30th, 2010

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