The change history of Amazon navigation bar

Navigation

It can be said that the Amazon website has popularized the Tab-type navigation. Over the years, they have been exploring a user interface that allows more and more of their products to be clearly presented to the user. It is also a very interesting thing to look back at the historical changes in the top navigation of Amazon's website.

In 1998, the Amazon site had only two major categories: books and music. Even with the addition of some categories, such as audio and gift, horizontal Tab navigation can be extended very smoothly, and through the different colors, it is easy to distinguish between products.

From 1999 to 2000, Amazon was adding new categories, and its Tab navigation reached its limit. Stores (Zshops), toys and games, appliances and electronic greeting cards These new product categories have added to the Amazon Logo, and the page text has shrunk (the page was still designed at 800x600 resolution). Wait until the tab label into two rows, to make room for the Logo. Obviously, the Tab-style navigation has been stretched to the limit and is almost out of control.

In 2000, Amazon tried to remove all the tabs, but in 2001 it added a store catalog and a specialty store (store directory/featured Stores). This redesign replaces the growing assortment with some specialty stores and provides a convenient way for users to access the remaining stores. When the concept of "my shop (personal stores)" was presented, Amazon once again returned to the Single tab navigation structure and added the "See more Stores" link to view more Tab.

From 2003 to 2004, Amazon continued to add new classifications. But for marketing and promotion considerations, Tab navigation is shorter. Tab will increase or decrease based on the company's promotional activities and user behavior changes. Very few tabs will always be there (except for "Welcome" and "Your Store"). According to the marketing and promotion, the Picture tab is used, and the color change when the tab is switched becomes random.

To address the puzzle of Tab change, Amazon began experimenting with an alternative option, one-line dynamic Tab navigation (PPT). An online test was done in 2004 to reduce the number of tabs to 2 (as in the 1998 design). The first tab is dynamic (it depends on the sort of product you are in) and the second is "all categories." In a version in 2005, the navigation starts with two tab and inserts the current category as the new tab, replacing the previous solution without replacing any of the current tab options.