Just a Poor Wayfaring Stranger Lost in Walmart
One of the things I'm interested in is how people find their way through the world and how people search for things. I am mostly interested in how people navigate the World Wide Web as they search for whatever they need on it. I spend a lot of time studying theories on how to design websites that make navigation easy and intuititive. Many of the principles for designing navigation in cyperspace also apply in the "real" world.
I buy almost everything I need at Walmart. This morning, for instance, I gassed up my truck and had it serviced, got a long overdue haircut, and bought the groceries and household supplies I need to get me through the upcoming week, at my local Walmart. I have shopped in my hometown store so many times that I could find my way around inside it blindfolded. I mean I used to be able to navigate effortlessly through the store, fearlessly piloting my shopping cart around or through merchandise stacked at the ends of the aisles, elderly shoppers in wheelchairs, kids playing touch football in the sporting ggods department, lovers embracing in the cereal aisle, etc., etc.
They have just rearranged almost everything in the Marble Falls Walmart. The store is much more open now, the aisles are wider, and it seems much larger. That is all good, except that this morning it was like trying to find things in a store I had never been in. I always pride myself on never having to ask where something is in a store. To me it is humiliating to have to ask a sales clerk or stocker for help. This morning I had to ask where something was twice.
The most important thing I had to buy today was trash bags. Once I was actually on the aisle where they are now shelved and left that aisle and walked across the store and spent several minutes looking for them hundreds of feet from where they were. That was one of the times I had to ask for help. By the time I walked back to where I had started looking for the trash bags, I was mad at myself for being so stupid, mad at Walmart for rearranging their merchandise, and mad about having to spend all Saturday morning shopping at Walmart when there was so much work I needed to do in my house.
One of the things I really love about the Google website is the sparse simplicity of the home page and the fast accurate results I get when I search for something. Please don't change a thing Google!!
I buy almost everything I need at Walmart. This morning, for instance, I gassed up my truck and had it serviced, got a long overdue haircut, and bought the groceries and household supplies I need to get me through the upcoming week, at my local Walmart. I have shopped in my hometown store so many times that I could find my way around inside it blindfolded. I mean I used to be able to navigate effortlessly through the store, fearlessly piloting my shopping cart around or through merchandise stacked at the ends of the aisles, elderly shoppers in wheelchairs, kids playing touch football in the sporting ggods department, lovers embracing in the cereal aisle, etc., etc.
They have just rearranged almost everything in the Marble Falls Walmart. The store is much more open now, the aisles are wider, and it seems much larger. That is all good, except that this morning it was like trying to find things in a store I had never been in. I always pride myself on never having to ask where something is in a store. To me it is humiliating to have to ask a sales clerk or stocker for help. This morning I had to ask where something was twice.
The most important thing I had to buy today was trash bags. Once I was actually on the aisle where they are now shelved and left that aisle and walked across the store and spent several minutes looking for them hundreds of feet from where they were. That was one of the times I had to ask for help. By the time I walked back to where I had started looking for the trash bags, I was mad at myself for being so stupid, mad at Walmart for rearranging their merchandise, and mad about having to spend all Saturday morning shopping at Walmart when there was so much work I needed to do in my house.
One of the things I really love about the Google website is the sparse simplicity of the home page and the fast accurate results I get when I search for something. Please don't change a thing Google!!
posted by Jimmy in the Hills | Saturday, September 16, 2006
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