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Chapters/Indigo usecrime

Chapters/Indigo’s online bookstore lets you check availability in stores
near you. Here’s the interface they offer you:

Chapters location chooser

Usecrimes to note:

  • Four-line window scrolls through 130 cities in all provinces
  • Have to ctrl-click to select multiple, but can’t see if you’ve
    unselected the ones you selected already without scrolling back to
    them

  • “Cities” are divided into municipalities instead of regions the way
    people think of them (so to see local Chapters I have to choose
    Ottawa, Kanata, Orleans, Nepean, and Gloucester — someone in Toronto would
    probably have to choose about thirty entries)

  • Mysteriously limited to three cities (even though one “city” takes a
    half-dozen selections), and once you choose, it stores your choice in a
    session cookie so you have to restart
    your browser to choose again

Not bad for four square inches or so. There’s no way someone at Chapters actually
used this to see if a book was available before rolling it out; they just made sure
they could click on it and get a result.

There’s a Chapters between here and work and I still do most of my book
shopping at Amazon. I wonder why?

Rich

5 responses to “Chapters/Indigo usecrime”

  2. Uh wha Owen Sound?
    I guess we have a Coles here…does that count?

    I have $70 in gift cards to Chapters and I still haven’t made use of them. I can never bring myself to buy something in the store, and the web interface is … well, crap.

    So.

  4. Ugh I ordered a book from them the other day. I found out 2 days later that I could of gotten the same book @ 20% off @ Electronics Boutique. @least I’m getting it delivered right to my door though (and I got the discount even though I don’t have a card =P), but I’ll be mad if they don’t get it in tomorrow since that’s when it’s suppose to be released.

  5. As someone who does interface work for a living now, I’ll have to see if I can find a way to do worse.

    I blame the bad things I do on management and users not letting me know what they want. It’s possible that’s what happened with this, but it’s still overboard on the badness.