My friend Lisa showed me a Dr. Seuss book the other day.
Wow! The guy was a genius for communicating powerful
principles in a fanciful, fun, toe-tapping way. Got me
groovin' around the kitchen table trying to imagine what
he'd have to say about lots of those web businesses out
there. You can guess what happened next, right?
One
link two link, red link blue link
Oh my gosh here comes a new link
This click that click, here click there click
Huh? click HELP! click Who knows where click?
New rules new day, how you must play
Who say? You say! I squeal "Oy-vey!"
Shockwave,
Flash until I drop
When all I want to do is shop
And when at last your help I seek
I find it’s written all in Geek
My brain must not be made like yours
Perhaps I shop the wrong web stores
Sorry guys, I did my best
To pass your little website test
I sought to find a rocking horse
And wound up in an obstacle course.
I'm
bleary-eyed, my brain is fried
And heaven knows how hard I tried
But cannot find the thing I seek
I could not find it in a week
All I want to do is buy
Yet all the chaos makes me cry,
"I do not like this crazy stuff
I think I've had more than enough."
I do not like this Internet
This Internet I do not get
So
to my real-world car I'm bound
I’ll search on terra-firmer ground
Hey …
what's with the tomatoes? Okay, so Dr. Seuss I'm not. But
you get the lesson, right? (chuckle)
click here for a printable version of this whole article
YOUR SHOPPING CART OR YOUR LIFE!
My
friend Lisa is going to England, so I decided to buy her
some travel gifts. Found a great store with all kinds of
cool stuff, drove on over, got a spot right in front,
walked inside, grabbed a cart, pushed it down the first
aisle, saw something I thought she'd like, put it in the
cart and...BAM! I found myself and my cart in this little
white room. Exxxxxcuuuuse me? I looked for a door, couldn’t
find one, and got a little panicky. Then suddenly I heard
this deep, spooky voice say, "You must stare at your
cart for at least 10 seconds before we will let you
continue shopping." Trembling a little, I did. Then
the voice said, "OK, you can leave now - provided you
can find your way out." It took a while but finally I
found this tiny button hidden on the wall and a secret
door opened. Man, was I glad to be out of there! But then,
the room let me out in a different place in the store.
Must have taken me 5 minutes to find where I started.
Still shaking a little, I continued down the aisle, calmed
down a bit, turned a corner, saw another way cool gift,
put it in the cart, and WHAMMO!! Back in the white room,
staring at the darned cart. Now Martian mommas don’t
raise no dummies and I did NOT want to hear that voice
again. Stared at the cart for a full 10 seconds and a
couple more just to be sure, then hunted around for the
button, got out of the room, got out of the aisle, got the
heck out of that store.
You
know, programmers and developers must shop differently
than the rest of us. Why else would they interrupt the Zen
of shopping by constantly forcing us, every time we choose
something, to a page with the itemized contents of our
shopping carts? Pick an item and off you have to go to
stare at your cart again. And again. I mean, is the cart that
important? Not just that, but it can be a real pain
sometimes to figure out how you're supposed to get back to
where you were!
Wouldn't
it be better if, when we choose an item, we get a quick,
simple confirmation? Maybe the sound of something landing
in a cart, maybe a color change on a graphic, maybe hands
clapping. But something that lets us stay put and do what
we want to do - shop. Sure, I'd like the option to check
my cart now and again, but how hard is it to give me that?
What do you want me to do, buy more stuff or stare at
my cart until I give up and go shop somewhere else?
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