A time comes in every woman’s life when she moves into a new apartment and is presented with a new chance to decorate. After a brief hiatus in California this summer, I was really excited to finally have my own place again. This excited.

So I hit the internet for ideas.

For me, online shopping is simple: If navigating your site is like elbowing my way through the racks at a thrift store, I’m out. I foolishly spend a lot of money paying full price because I don’t find the thrill of the hunt particularly thrilling. If you’re a retailer, it would be a major miss to not capitalize on my laziness.

During my hunt for things for the new apartment, however, four major retailers did little more than capitalize on my disdain for poor interaction design. Here’s what I found.

IKEA

Going to IKEA requires a certain amount of strength and moral fortitude. You wake up early on your day off and join 1,400 shoppers herded together along some kind of precursor to the Macy’s Parade route, each armed with a shopping cart with four turning wheels. I’m a small person, so using my 110-pound frame to slalom 100 pounds of merchandise in one of these things is not only hilarious, but a safety risk for everyone in my way. A lot of things aren’t available on IKEA.com, but I like to window shop before heading to the store, mostly so I don’t end up wandering into the lighting section and destroying it with my cart, or taking out a small child.

IKEA’s online experience, however, is about as enjoyable. The nav buttons are all sized to correspond to the text inside, making the “New” and “Offers” buttons small and easy to miss. The catch-all button, “Departments” is located all the way to the right, leaving an awkward amount of space between it and the remaining top nav. It’s an OCD nightmare. Someone please resize these buttons before I start counting or washing my hands.

Once I got past the spacing issues, I couldn’t find the bathroom section, which is oddly not in the main navigation. It would seem to me that bathrooms would surely make the cut, but maybe people in Sweden aren’t quite as concerned with towel racks.

I finally found it in the “Departments” catch-all, amid 347 alpha-ordered sub-cats that make no sense.

“Secondary storage”? What the *&^% is that? How about just calling it “Storage” and letting me sort once I’m there? More like secondary button. Which your website needs none of.

When I finally found the item I was looking for, I had to click each item to see the available colors. This means I’m wasting time clicking things that may not even be relevant to me. Sure, I could’ve sorted by color, but what if I miss out on the perfect shade of brown/grey because I selected grey and it was categorized under brown? How do I know I can trust whoever is in charge of these, uh … grey areas? Why don’t you let me, the consumer, see all the colors on the product list page, and save the games of cat and mouse for the kids in Smaland? I need a cinnamon bun.

Target

Not everything is actually more affordable at IKEA, but they definitely have the edge on curtains. Unfortunately, I still hadn’t found anything at IKEA that was just right, so I Goldilocks’d myself over to Target.com to see if I could pay a little more for something I loved. Target may not be the cheapest on the block, but they’ve nailed the in-store experience, ensuring your time there is extremely pleasurable (unlike their direct competitor). Every time I go to Target to buy toilet paper, I somehow manage to leave with three new shirts and designer toys for an animal I don’t even own. Are you guys pumping oxygen through those vents? I’m feeling euphoric.

Their site, however, is an entirely different experience — one that isn’t encouraging me to stick around and play awhile. The thumbnails on the product list pages are too small due to too many items displayed on the page. Thumbnail size is crucial when you’re shopping for something like curtains, where visual details of the product are important. I mean, clearly I don’t want the neon turquoise Xhilaration Curtains with Pom Poms, but maybe I do. Maybe if I could see the pom poms, I’d be rethink my whole motif.

Given that I really, really cannot be left alone in a Target without a buddy to guard my wallet, I was disappointed I couldn’t find exactly what I needed online. Now I’ll probably have to go into the store after all, where I’ll end up buying a popcorn popper, lip gloss, gourmet tea, sunglasses and a bubble umbrella. Slick move, Target. Slick move.

Best Buy

A new apartment doesn’t always mean a new TV, but it does when the one you’re watching is a 27-inch tube model from 1991. I suspect the movers had wished I’d ditched the dinosaur before I changed locales, but I still needed something to watch football while I was waiting for forthcoming holiday deals.

Labor Day was just around the corner, and I was curious what Best Buy was offering. TVs were sorted by size, then best-selling, but the prices were nowhere to be found.

Lots of retailers save their promotional price for viewing in-cart, something that still boggles my mind since the pressure to commit really only exists in-store. Clicking out of a cart window is far easier than walking away from a salesperson who just spent 30 minutes trying to convince me to go with the Samsung. So I was a little peeved that once I put a TV in my cart just to see the price, I still couldn’t see it. The next screen asked me to create an account, so I clicked “Checkout as Guest” hoping to quickly get to the price. What I got next was a screen asking for my billing information — still no price in sight. In 45 seconds, I just contributed to your bounce rate. And am most likely bouncing my business to another store.

H&M

So, admittedly, I wasn’t looking for home furnishings at H&M. I was looking for me furnishings. And when you’ve just moved on a tight budget, there are few places better than the IKEA of clothing. Not only do they share a similar price point and country of origin, but they also share a cumbersome online shopping experience. Once something is in your cart, clicking “back” in your browser takes you through every color you clicked on before making your decision, which means I could be clicking six times before I get back to my search results to continue shopping. Despite my bank account telling me otherwise, I WANT TO KEEP SHOPPING. YOU WANT ME TO KEEP SHOPPING. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE JUST LET ME KEEP SHOPPING.

OK, but seriously. Someone please stop me from shopping.