Stay out of the way

I was giving my son a bath when I realized I was out of groceries.

Okay, quick, I thought. I'll just open Amazon Fresh, find what I need, grab the earliest delivery window, done. Two minutes. Easy. My son was already splashing around asking me questions and wanting to play, so I really just needed to get this done fast.

I opened the app and started typing. The results came up — but something was off. I was seeing regular Amazon items, not Amazon Fresh items. I stared at the screen for a second. Where's Amazon Fresh? How do I switch to just Fresh?

Turns out, Amazon had tucked Amazon Fresh inside a horizontal scroll bar at the top of the screen. A scroll bar. With everything in it — Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods, the main Amazon store — all sitting in a little carousel that you'd only find if you knew to look for it. I had to scroll sideways just to get to the thing I came for.

It took me two to three minutes to figure that out. Which doesn't sound like a lot. But I had a four-year-old in a bathtub asking me why fish can breathe underwater. In a world with AI, this is what I get.

Here's what it made me think though. When I was single, this wouldn't have been a problem. I had time. Fewer things competing for my attention. If an app made me scroll around for a bit, sure I'll do it and figure it out. I didn't feel the cost of it. Back then, I could afford to treat friction as interesting. Now I recognize it as unnecessary.

But now I have two other humans as a family, which comes with more tasks and responsibilities in the same 24 hours. I value my time more and every minute I spend confused by an app is only adding to my anxiety. So, I feel that friction completely differently now. It's not a minor annoyance anymore. It's actually frustrating.

When I really thought about it, I realized the problem wasn't the navigation. It was about the state.

There are times when I'm open to suggestions. Because let's be real sometimes these suggestions turn out to be helpful. Times when showing me Amazon Store options alongside Amazon Fresh options makes sense — I'm browsing, I'm comparing, I'm open to being nudged somewhere new. But there are also times when I have already decided what I want to do. At that point I'm not exploring. I already decided and I don't want the system to decide anything for me. I just needed to go.

That was the usability problem. I didn't want Amazon to decide for me — I already knew what I wanted. All I wanted to do was execute what I had already decided. The system got in the way of that by treating me like I was still in a mode I had long left.

The question is not if cross-selling is the problem. Cross-selling is important for businesses. It increases exposure, it drives revenue across multiple services, it makes sense from a product strategy perspective. I get all of that.

The question is with consolidated platforms and features does the system understand the intent clearly and quickly? Once I know what I want to do, the system should know it too — or at least pick up on it fast enough. If a user is typing "milk" at 7:12 p.m. with a child in the bathtub, the system should probably know that this user needs Amazon Fresh or at least make it easy enough for the user to switch mode.

I'm not saying the system needs to know everything about me. But it should learn. It needs to recognize when I've already decided what I want — versus when I actually need the system to help me decide. That's a very specific thing. And it's a solvable thing.

Because here's what I think: if a platform is more consolidated — if it's housing Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods and the main store all under one roof — it has more responsibility to understand the intent of the user early enough to avoid that confusion and frustration. The bigger the platform, the more it owes the user that clarity.

Design shouldn't assume how much time a person has. It should adapt to the fact that the answer changes moment to moment — sometimes even mid-bath.