Amazon User Experience Issue
How I kept ordering the wrong batteries on Amazon
A few months ago I was working for Neo Innovation, and our office ran out of AA batteries. Having previously ordered Amazon Basic rechargeable batteries at home, and being reasonably satisfied with them, it made sense to me to order a bunch of them for the office. Several clicks later, I’d put in a new order to get more batteries. When I got into the office a few days later, the batteries had been delivered and I opened the package to find 12 AAA batteries instead of the AA ones I had ordered. I assumed I’d simply picked the wrong product page, so I went on Amazon and submitted a request for a refund. To my surprise, they comped the batteries!
Cool! But, of course, I still needed batteries for the office so I hurriedly ordered another 12 AA batteries. A little while later I received the following email in my inbox:
“What the heck?!” I thought to myself. Either something very strange was going on at Amazon (which I doubted), or I hadn’t been paying close enough attention to what I was ordering. Take a moment to look at the AmazonBasics AA batteries product page, and see if you can spot what kept tripping me up:
The quantity selector for batteries controls two data dimensions: both quantity and battery type. When I was looking at this, my attention was only drawn to “4 8 12."Since I hadn’t suspected that the quantity selector would also affect battery type, I continually selected 12.
