Going for baroque

As I was making a big 'ol Christmas order on Amazon, including a couple different shipping addresses and a mix of wrapped and not-wrapped presents, I was surprised when I realized that I hadn't done anything other than One-Click in a good, long time. What a shock -- the Amazon checkout process has become so complex, so rife with the possibility of error, that it had me tearing out my hair. I'm a User Experience professional, and probably more adept than the average human at figuring these things out, and I was completely baffled at time. I found myself backtracking to indicate multiple shipping addresses. Missing gift wrap options. My annoyance level was about what it would have been standing in line at the mall and the post office, back in the day.

Finally, I just gave up, and called my mom to tell her to giftwrap her own gift. Touching, no?

I used to work for Jay Chiat in the late '80s at Chiat/Day. The agency was embarking on a string of mergers and acquisitions, and Jay was fond of saying that "we'll grow until we suck."

Amazon, you're there.

Happy holidays!