iTunes usability blunder while purchasing multiple songs
I’m traveling this week for a web usability study and before my trip, I made a stop by the iTunes store to load up on some new music. Apple, who I normally praise for excellent usability and simplicity in user interface design, has made a rather annoying usability blunder in their iTunes store.
Their latest feature seems to be showing you an up-to-date “album price” that dynamically adjusts as you purchase songs from an album. For example, take a look at this screen shot of the new Avril Lavigne album, pre-purchase:
Now, after making a purchase (of track #1, “Girlfriend”), look at the screen shot (I’ve highlighted the area that changes):
The “Complete My Album for $9.00″ is now showing based on me having purchased track #1 from the album. While this may look like a great convenience feature on the surface, it is horribly annoying if you’re picking and choosing multiple tracks to buy. The reason why it is annoying is because each time you click “Buy Song,” it spawns a refresh of the entire album page to update the “complete my album” price. This is a problem when your track list is scrollable (due to multiple songs). Because the entire page refreshes, it doesn’t remember your scroll-to-point, and starts you back over at the top.
This may work for individual album releases — but it really breaks down on larger album compilations and iMixes
This becomes particularly annoying on larger, compilation albums or in the iMixes area of the store where you’re always going to pick and choose your favorites out of 10′s or even 100′s of tracks. Previously, I could just zip down the list and click “buy song” on each line item and it would queue up several purchases for me within a matter of seconds. Now, with this new design, I have to click “buy song,” wait for the page to refresh, re-scroll to my previous location, and click “buy song” again on the next track I want…and repeat.
Will it increase conversion to full album purchases?
I hope they are evaluating whether or not this helps convert to sales of entire albums (I secretly hope it doesn’t so they ditch this new functionality). I really don’t see how it will considering people probably pick and choose what they want, rather than buying a song or two, then convert to purchasing the entire album.
Usability shouldn’t get in the way of consumers spending their money with you
If I were Apple, I would eliminate this feature for now because it’s such an inconvenience and makes it painful for users purchasing multiple tracks. It can always be added later when the iTunes browser can support Ajax or dynamically update content within a page without forcing an entire page refresh. For now, it’s a big pain point for me that makes spending money difficult — usability shouldn’t get in the way of consumers spending their money with you.
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