Kindle iPhone App: Purchased by Accident? No Problem.
Miranda Capra / Consumer Products / Usability / Web & SoftwareMy husband downloaded the Kindle application for his iPhone recently, and, despite having a PhD in Computer Science/HCI, immediately proceeded to accidentally purchase a book. He started off well, downloading a free sample of the book from the Kindle store (screenshots 1 + 2). When he reached the end of the sample (screenshot 3) he wanted pricing information for purchasing, so he clicked on “Buy Now” and poof! purchased the book (screenshot 4). I’m not sure what surprised me more – the fact that Amazon, which has been doing online shopping for almost 15 years, managed to create an application that made it so easy to accidentally purchase a book, or that the accidental purchase seemed to be anticipated. Because after purchasing the book, the confirmation screen asked “Purchased by accident?” and provided a large “Cancel this order” button that immediately canceled the order. After I found out how easy it was to cancel the order, I had to try this myself, and decided that the design wasn’t nearly as terrible as I thought at first. Let me explain…
