Amazon's new WindowShop 3D marketplace is a new spin on shopping. Instead of the traditional 2D way of searching and sorting, this new 3D interface is surprisingly iPhone like in how you navigate and select items for purchase. It also reminds me a bit of SearchMe -- but with this graphically inspired search engine you can only see items left to right as supposed to up and down.
With this new Amazon creation, you can scan books and albums but hopefully as it evolves, you will be able to see products as well. One other area for improvement is allowing you to search and see the results in this new interface. Currently you can only see the options the company allows you to see such as Editor's Picks, Best Selling, etc.
Is 3D the future of searching and sorting? Perhaps but if this interface alone was the only way to purchase from Amazon, I am sure 99% of users would give up before ordering. The 3D interface works best when information is narrowed down in advance. Having said that, Amazon's jewelry interface can definitely use this 3D upgrade as it is pretty tough to navigate today. I say this because there are thousands of jewelry items which you can scan through to get the perfect item and the current system of clicking next at the bottom of pages is annoyingly slow and frustrating.
Curious about how it works? Try it yourself.
See Also: CNET
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