The UX of the Dash Button is great, shopping for laundry detergent is boring, just one press and it's over. Managing your personal finances has zero to do with the dash button user experience.
The whole point is pushing the button provides no immediate feedback at all. People are used to pushing a button doing something immediately, not pushing a button and *MAYBE* something happens 48 hours from now.
As such, these buttons are unlikely to gain any kind of popularity.
Even without RTFA, the whole premise of the things is stupid. Even children have smartphones now. A smartphone can play the same little game. a QR code that one-clicked you a replacement whatever would be at least as useful.
Because pushing a single dedicated physical button is, surprisingly, much easier than finding / pulling out your phone, opening an app and selecting an item from a list. It provides no interruption to the flow of your activity. When I'm doing heavy cooking, I use a voice recorder (hardware, not app on my phone) to record ideas, tasks and things to put on the shopping list. It makes a huge difference in time and attention compared to taking even a tiny break from my current task. If it queued up user designa
These guys play games with prices ALL THE DAMN TIME and Amazon is not alone in this game.
Depending on when you buy things like this the price can vary as much as 2-5 dollars.
Though in this case it looks like if I buy the a type particular box. With S&H it is cheaper than my local stores per oz. But the box I normally get is 5 dollars more. That is why I did not get this button. I am always having to do linear algebra to cost optimize what I buy.
I not only RTFA, I have several dash buttons now. I get immediate feedback through a notification on my phone which lets me know it was ordered and the estimated arrival (as well as giving me the option to go to the app and cancel if it was a accidental order). I get routine updates as it moves through the delivery process - shipping, updated delivery times if it will be late, delivered.
It's handy as hell. Take the last paper towel out of the closet and the button is right there, just a press and new paper towels arrive and I don't have to cart them home.
Why not just have a cell phone app. Open the app, see a list of easy to order items, click on the items you want to order and hit send. That's it. Very simple to use, and the user knows that their order went through. You can also alert them of any number of inventory problems. You can also make it work for any item you sell, not just a very small number of products that you think somebody might want to order frequently. If you figure out the frequency with which they order the item based on their account
Because the best solution to every problem isn't an app. Believe it or not there sometimes are better and more efficient ways to solve a problem.
Open the app, see a list of easy to order items, click on the items you want to order and hit send. That's it. Very simple to use, and the user knows that their order went through.
All of which is harder than just pushing a button. You just described a 4 step process than in reality has even more steps. (turn on phone, log in, find app, open app, scroll through list, select item(s), select send). Compare that with pushing a single button on a wall and it is absurdly complicated.
Look I don't have any use for these Dash buttons myself but I understand what they are trying to do. The less steps someone has to go through the more likely they are to buy. The founder of Coke basically built his business around making sure his product was "within arm's reach of desire" which is why you can easily find a coke product almost anywhere on the globe even in some of the most remote corners. They made buying their product VERY easy. Amazon is trying to do similar things. Maybe the Dash buttons won't work out but the principle of what they are doing makes sense. Sometimes a more general solution isn't the better one.
In other words, people have become disgustingly lazy. God help us if there are robots that can feed people because some will loose the ability to do even that.
In other words, people have become disgustingly lazy.
The target demographic for these is the exact opposite of lazy. It's aimed at people who are very busy and who are willing to trade a bit of money for time. Just because someone thinks time spent shopping for and buying dish soap is wasteful does not make them lazy. It makes them prudent if anything. I buy stuff online all the time so I don't have to waste hours pointlessly driving around so I can buy things - a complete waste of my life. I'd rather spend the time doing something else. This is just a
I don't know, I'm not part of the new-school where everything possible has to be done online. I spend 10 seconds in the dish soap aisle at the grocery store, because I have to be there for food anyway. Doing it the old way means I don't need all kinds of gadgets to run my life and is probably way more efficient.
The immediate feedback is the button push and knowledge you ordered the laundry soap. Also, there's no *MAYBE*, the purchase is sent and the soap will arrive later. (Most people don't wait for the empty box to get more soap and so don't need it to materialize on the spot, they put it on a list and get it later. Much the same logic as the button.)
Actually great UX for everyone else (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Actually great UX for everyone else (Score:4, Interesting)
I can tell you didn't RTFA.
The whole point is pushing the button provides no immediate feedback at all. People are used to pushing a button doing something immediately, not pushing a button and *MAYBE* something happens 48 hours from now.
As such, these buttons are unlikely to gain any kind of popularity.
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Even without RTFA, the whole premise of the things is stupid. Even children have smartphones now. A smartphone can play the same little game. a QR code that one-clicked you a replacement whatever would be at least as useful.
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So then, why wouldn't you just order the thing from a cell phone app (Amazon DASH app) in the first place?
The physical button is stupid.
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The reason I do not get it is the 'disconnect'.
These guys play games with prices ALL THE DAMN TIME and Amazon is not alone in this game.
Depending on when you buy things like this the price can vary as much as 2-5 dollars.
Though in this case it looks like if I buy the a type particular box. With S&H it is cheaper than my local stores per oz. But the box I normally get is 5 dollars more. That is why I did not get this button. I am always having to do linear algebra to cost optimize what I buy.
When is
Re:Actually great UX for everyone else (Score:5, Informative)
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The button itself provides feedback. You push it, it blinks for a few seconds, then shows a green light if successful and a red light if not.
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Why not just have a cell phone app. Open the app, see a list of easy to order items, click on the items you want to order and hit send. That's it. Very simple to use, and the user knows that their order went through. You can also alert them of any number of inventory problems. You can also make it work for any item you sell, not just a very small number of products that you think somebody might want to order frequently. If you figure out the frequency with which they order the item based on their account
The solution to every problem isn't an app (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not just have a cell phone app.
Because the best solution to every problem isn't an app. Believe it or not there sometimes are better and more efficient ways to solve a problem.
Open the app, see a list of easy to order items, click on the items you want to order and hit send. That's it. Very simple to use, and the user knows that their order went through.
All of which is harder than just pushing a button. You just described a 4 step process than in reality has even more steps. (turn on phone, log in, find app, open app, scroll through list, select item(s), select send). Compare that with pushing a single button on a wall and it is absurdly complicated.
Look I don't have any use for these Dash buttons myself but I understand what they are trying to do. The less steps someone has to go through the more likely they are to buy. The founder of Coke basically built his business around making sure his product was "within arm's reach of desire" which is why you can easily find a coke product almost anywhere on the globe even in some of the most remote corners. They made buying their product VERY easy. Amazon is trying to do similar things. Maybe the Dash buttons won't work out but the principle of what they are doing makes sense. Sometimes a more general solution isn't the better one.
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Saving time on wasteful activities (Score:2)
In other words, people have become disgustingly lazy.
The target demographic for these is the exact opposite of lazy. It's aimed at people who are very busy and who are willing to trade a bit of money for time. Just because someone thinks time spent shopping for and buying dish soap is wasteful does not make them lazy. It makes them prudent if anything. I buy stuff online all the time so I don't have to waste hours pointlessly driving around so I can buy things - a complete waste of my life. I'd rather spend the time doing something else. This is just a
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I think it will catch on somewhat.
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The immediate feedback is the button push and knowledge you ordered the laundry soap.
"Knowledge" is not feedback.
The button push is only feedback that the button was pushed. It does not indicate that pushing the button had any effect.