In our previous post, we started to look at how the new Amazon.com Premium A+ Modules display on both desktop and mobile platforms, to try to understand what this will mean for the Amazon EU locales when these new features are widely rolled out to all vendors/countries.
Module 3 – this module is wider than the others when displayed on a mobile device.
Amazon.com Premium A+
Premium A+ pages, much like most new elements launched by Amazon, came to their US markets before their European launch, starting last year. Although not in widespread use, we’ve seen them appear on many high-profile products from larger vendors, and are distinct from the custom detail pages that Amazon had previously offered at the highest tier. In this small study, we’re going to be looking at the content displayed on the popular Bose QuietComfort 35 (Series II) high-end headphones.
Module 3: Image Carousel
Desktop
Simple landscape image carousel with arrows either side to scroll. This example shows 4 images in total and all are sized to fit with the 1464 x 600 px standard set by the first module. These images are very wide, so there’s now a need to have multiple assets that either are or can be appropriately cropped to fit that display ratio.
Mobile
From what we’ve seen, the alignment of the mobile version of this gallery is a little off. It’s wider than the preceding modules, so it sticks out like a sore thumb. Much like the banner, the images themselves show more height than is displayed in desktop mode, but have been narrowed. Thankfully, unlike the banner, these images aren’t distorted.
This may play into why this version doesn’t seem to be included in the current collection of Premium A+ modules. At the moment in the EU, only a standard carousel is available, and that requires narrower images to be uploaded separately for mobile. It’s possible that this example is either a test or a module that has been depreciated before the EU launch.
Module 4: Hotspots A
Module 4 – the text box and imagery fails to highlight the product features in an attractive way
Desktop
An image map, with five animated hotspots highlighting product features and displaying relevant text when the cursor moves over them.
Mobile
Without the screen space to allow users to easily select the highlight points on the image, implementing this kind of image map in mobile was always going to be challenging. The solution they’ve settled on is to surface the content is an auto-carousel. This displays five images of the product, each one overlaid with one of the feature paragraphs from the original image map.
There’s a few problems with this. Firstly, the auto-carousel seems to begin when the element loads, which means it’s possible for the animation to end before the user gets to view it. A minor issue, but its compounded by the lack of any visual UI elements to make the user aware that this element can be scrolled horizontally back and forth. Add in the fact that a user scrolling down the page can stop the auto-carousel with accidental finger placement, and there is a risk that many customers will miss out on seeing all but one of these features.
Although there are five features to display, this element only shows 3 (very similar) images that don’t do a good job of highlighting the product benefits. It seems like additional images for the mobile version of an image map are a requirement, and for this product they were lacking.
Join us tomorrow when we’ll continue our study of the new Premium A+ modules on Amazon.com.
