Killspeak

I’m keen on books. I buy a lot of them, ask for them as gifts, and when I can find the time, even read them. I also live in Canada, which means I’m quite familiar with Indigo. Most every bound stack of ink and dead trees on my shelves was purchased at one of Indigo’s mall stores, sprawl superstores, or website.

Indigo wants its customers to know it’s all about Canada. Indigo stores often cover a whole wall or stairwell with the names of Canadian authors and musicians, printed white on red. The cynic in me knows these creators are being used to put a friendly face on a private company. This patriotism isn’t hokey, but it is marketing. It may be tolerable because of the obscurity of Canadian cultural personages; Canadians that do know them are probably eager enough to have these authors recognized, so forgive Indigo for covering itself with their names. Nonetheless, Indigo is using Canadian culture-makers to sponge good will from its customers.

Increasingly, Indigo is the primary provider of Canadian cultural products. Indigo enjoys an almost total lack of competition: it’s “the closest thing to an unregulated monopoly in Canada’s private sector.” Indigo owns Chapters, Coles, Book Company, SmithBooks, and The World’s Biggest Bookstore; only a few, city-centre–type independent booksellers remain. The company also dabbles in censorship through supply: Indigo doesn’t sell Mein Kampf and kept an issue of Harper’s off its shelves because of some cartoons.

This is not a very likable company—but I’m keen on books, so, yeah, I shop at Indigo without much hesitation. I pay to be a part of their iRewards programme (and, in doing so, let them track everything that I buy). I even maintain a list of books I’d like to someday buy using their online wishlist.

This wishlist is where I keep track of interesting books and DVDs. Even if I have no strong desire to own a book, perhaps only to keep an eye out for it at the library, I’ll add it to the wishlist because it’s handy. The wishlist is the first place I’ll direct people who ask me what I’d like for my birthday, Christmas, et cetera. Even when killing time in one of Indigo’s stores, I’ll often look up my wishlist using their self-service terminals to remind myself what I’m interested in.

The wishlist is where I store my book- and DVD-related intentions, which change a couple of times a week. So it’s frustrating when I’m kept from using the wishlist by some of Indigo’s short-sighted design decisions. Far too often, I’m not allowed to add an item. Sometimes, I find that my list has been re-organized. It’s almost like having your pen run out of ink, or have someone shuffle your notes while you weren’t looking.

These may not seem like big problems. I can maintain a list with del.icio.us, right? Sure (that’s where all the books I can’t add end up) but it doesn’t have live prices, pretty cover art, easy to buy links for less technically inclined gift-givers, or the ability to be checked in the store. I would much rather Indigo improve their wishlist service, and I’m pretty sure that Indigo would like that too. After all, other than their ubiquity, it’s the only thing that really keeps me a customer, and it’s at the centre of that business.

So I’ve made a short list of simple design changes that I believe would alleviate my frustration, as well as make the wishlist better for me and consequently for Indigo.

• Let me add any book in the database. I don’t care if it is “temporarily unavailable to order.” If I can find it in your database, I should be able to wish for it. In the cases where it is unavailable, offer to notify me when it does become available. If the book is out of print, why not provide a quick list of other editions that may be available? In either case, no harm is done by letting me add the item to my list. I may never be able to buy the book from Indigo, but I will continue to use the wishlist, and that’s sure to snare me in a purchase sooner or later.

• Allow me to sort my list. Me. Indigo should not re-order the list (as it has in the past, for no good reason). Doing so is confusing and off-putting. I can’t trust Indigo to keep my list my way. Oddly, items aren’t even sorted: not by title, author, price, availability, or date added. They should be, and the criterion for sorting should be in the user’s control. It’d be useful to see, say, which DVDs on my list are the cheapest, or which I’ve added most recently.

• Let me set how much I want something. Right now, there’s no way for me to separate the books I really want from the ones I may pick up sometime. A simple three-level setting would be enough to remind myself and show others which items would make a better purchase.

• Give my wishlist a friendly URL. I want other people to use the list, but I’m not eager to share it through Indigo’s email service or to cut-and-paste its unwieldy URL. Why not something easy to remember? I could jot down http://indigo.ca/my@email.address/wishlist/ on a Post-it, or read it over the phone without much trouble. It’d make it that much easier for others to buy me something I want.

• Tidy up the little things. Indigo should put some “Add to cart” and “Check for availability at local store” buttons next to each item, instead of check-boxes and a “Add all selected items to cart” button all the way at the bottom of the page. Further, they should replace the “Most Wished For Items” column with one showing relevant recommendations (items similar to those already on my list, perhaps). While they’re at it, Indigo should fix the page’s <title>.

C’mon, Indigo: let me give you my money.