If you’re familiar with my Elements of Design showcase then you know that I am a firm believer in the saying “the devil’s in the details.”
Seemingly small decision choices — from search boxes to heading typography — can make all the difference to your overall site design, the user experience, and, if you’re an online retailer, your bottom line.
Along these lines, GrokDotCom has an interesting article on the evolution of the Amazon add-to-cart button, which also includes a couple of great screenshots of a very early Amazon.com.
I also like the idea that the author has been taking screenshots of Amazon (and presumably other sites) over many years, building up a library of examples of how their interaction design process works.
I’ve often thought about doing this with some of my favorite sites, but have yet to do so.
On second thoughts, perhaps this would be a good idea for a new online service — one that automatically takes screenshots of a web page on a timed basis, stores them for you or sends them to your favorite online storage account, and enables you to edit the screenshots and make slideshows to show how the page in question has evolved over time.
It looks like no one took me up on my last idea — any takers for this one?