

Zappos responds to Andrew Wilkinson's "You're Killing Me Zappos" letter - metalab
http://blogs.zappos.com/blogs/inside-zappos/2009/09/16/an-open-letter-response-to-youre-killing-me-zappos

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seldo
A thoughtful and intelligent response. Like the recent critique of the
American Airlines website (one of the worst sites on the Internet), the
response was basically "we know, but it takes longer to implement than it does
to draw". The difference is that Zappos has made some visible progress in the
last year, while AA.com has barely changed in five years.

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hedgehog
The Zappos guys seem to be thoughtful all-round. A lot of companies sponsor a
mile or two of highway, they have something like the last 20 miles heading in
to Las Vegas (not sure exactly but I drove in from LA over the summer and I
was passing their signs for 20-30 minutes).

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tolmasky
In all honesty, I did not consider the two versions of the site to be
different enough to create such a big stink over. The second version looks
"brighter, glossier", not really better designed. The overall site is still a
mess and a jumble. Does anyone honestly scroll all the way to the bottom for
either of these? Half the stuff on both versions looks like its doubleclick
ads or something.

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purp
That was the point Andrew was making with his post, I think.

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midnightmonster
If a man's design critiques generate a lot of links and discussion but reveal
that the author has no concept of the design process of large sites, does his
reputation ultimately benefit or suffer. Tune in next time, but my guess is
any publicity is good publicity.

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callmeed
I say A/B test the redesign against the current design for one week.

If the redesign gets more sales/conversions than normal, Andrew gets to keep
the extra money ... if not, he has to pay the difference :)

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hellweaver666
That's not a good idea - in my experience launching a redesign almost always
causes a dip in conversions for the first couple of weeks before people get
used to it and start buying again.

That's exactly why a slow design evolution is better than redesign for big
companies.

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callmeed
Despite the fact my comment was mostly tongue in cheek, I don't agree with
you–at least not in this sense.

Shoes aren't something that consumers buy every week. New customers to Zappos
wouldn't know the difference, and I doubt repeat Zappos customers would be so
confused/disoriented as to not make a purchase (or need time to get
acclimated).

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ashishk
meh.

the original post to me seemed unnecessary, as does this reply.

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webology
Every time I see a post like this or a craigslist redesign, etc I think the
exact same thing.

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psranga
To the Andrew: I didn't know at first I could click on the img and see a full-
size page. I was wondering what I was supposed to infer from looking at a
"head shot".

I like the original. He removed the shortcuts to "what's new", top sellers
etc. That does not seem like an improvement. I've not shopped at Zappos but I
use similar links on Newegg all the time.

Just adding gradients and whitespace is not enough to improve a site. :)

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Legion
But really, Andrew's redesign isn't the point.

He wasn't saying his design was definitely the way to go, he simply took a
stab at it as an example.

The points he made in the text of his letter aren't invalidated by any
arguable shortcomings of his design.

Also, while you're right that he removed certain front page elements, he
specifically said in the text that his design "doesn’t reflect all of the
functionality and content currently in the Zeta". The point was to make a
general design for the sake of his argument, not to meticulously integrate
every single piece of functionality into his design.

