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I don't know for how long they have been having this, but today I realized amazons usage of a slider element on their home page (May 25, 2015). My general impression (mainly based on a few articles I have come across) was that form a UX perspective, sliders should be avoided.

Playing devil's advocate, I googled "why sliders are good", being presented with these first page result:

... list continues pretty much like that, although the possibility of non-sucking sliders is discussed in some articles. There is also - of course - a quite popular post here on UX, which is strongly advising against sliders.

Personally I think amazons slider is not at all above the average slider. Clumsy to navigate, not really nice to read/use on mobile. I can seriously not remember the content of any slide by now ..

Which brings me to my question:

Why do serious websites such as amazon use outdated UI elements? I thought companies like amazon were more or less run by "web-people", not exactly the type that puts sliders up there if they were not effective (no doubt they track their conversions). What's the reasoning behind this?

Community
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panepeter
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1 Answers1

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a) Serious websites does not have always the best UX

b) Big websites have longer development cycles

c) Nothing is only bad. Sliders have advantages: focus on single items, possibility to see other items, ... but usually the major user goals are something else

Gustav
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  • I think I mostly agree with c) - maybe the general criticism of sliders has been too harsh. But a development cycle - for a slider - I mean .. how long could it take?! – panepeter May 25 '15 at 15:51
  • it's not just about the change of a slider, it's about a change of the website and the experience, expectations of users, how does the site looks like, what are the goals? is usability more important than cx or marketing for that part? – Gustav May 25 '15 at 16:06