dear ebay ….
1995 called. They want their web design back.
Har. Har. Har.
I love ebay. I really do. Well, I love *finding* and *buying* cool stuff on ebay. But navigating their website is about as fun as losing your car keys. I mean, who designed that horrid thing? Being a web designer myself, I’m naturally very critical about the look and feel of other websites, but if it’s something I use on a regular basis, I tend to overlook the flaws and just pay attention to the functionality. Ebay, however, is one of those sites that goes beyond basic annoyances and just simply hides everything you’re looking for in the dumbest places.
The thing that happens to me all the time is that I cannot find what I’m looking for. At all. For instance, the other day I was watching an auction, and after it ended I went to My Ebay to see if I won it or not. First of all, it had ended about two hours earlier and it was one that I really was hoping to get, and I still hadn’t gotten an e-mail (it definately wasn’t my e-mail server’s fault either, they are very responsive). Two hours after the auction ended, and I had no clue if I won it or not! I was kind of panicked. Mostly because I bid around $150 or so for a rare and hard to find soundtrack and I was excited to know if I got it or not.
Anyway, I logged into My Ebay, and the closed auction wasn’t listed anywhere on the front page. I made the mistake of *not* bookmarking the actual item’s page, thinking that I’d always have quick access to it on the personal ebay page. Well, I couldn’t find a link to it anywhere. It wasn’t in my “Don’t forget to pay…” section, and I couldn’t find any kind of “previous auctions” section either. So, how did I find out about the auction? I had to wait for the e-mail to come that said that I did win (go me). Stupid ebay.
While I’m on the subject, what is up with their sign-in system? It bugs the crap out of me that you have to sign in about 8,432 times. Well, not that much, but anytime you access any other part of the site you have to log in again! I already logged in, you jerks! Go to My Ebay, you login. Go to change your address, you login. Go to bid, you login again. Sakes alive.
Well, that’s enough of my ranting. The thing that got me posting was I saw this link on Digg today about someone’s proposed redesign of the frontpage here. Great idea. Someone tell ebay to get a clue and follow that guy’s lead.
And if they can manage it, tell me which auctions I was bidding on. Mmmkthx.