Tier III: Presentation

The Presentation tier is the one aspect of Amazon’s interface most in need of attention. Although it generally supports the previous layers, it fails to add as much to the experience as it could.

Layer 7: Layout

Amazon primarily uses two layouts: one for view pages and one for forms. The book details page shown in Figure 13.6 is representative of the layout for view pages, as are the checkout process pages shown in Figure 13.7 for forms.

The layout on the book details page uses a two-column grid, dedicating the left-side column to navigation options and the other column to product information. In some situations, such as the bookstore’s home page, Amazon extends the grid, adding a third column to the right ...

Get Making the Web Work: Designing Effective Web Applications now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.