One of the most common usability mistakes I hear is, “Well, If Amazon does it, it must be good.” Yes, Amazon.com is a very usable site with millions of dollars in site design and usability testing, I’m sure. I think a Nielsen usability study a few years ago set the Amazon Standard of Usability (I coined this phrase ) by saying it was by far the most usable site on the Web. The word started spreading that if you wanted a usable e-comm site emulating Amazon was the way to go.

Jacob Nielsen actually revoked Amazon.com’s most usable site status in 2005, and does a nice job summing up why you shouldn’t emulate them in this article.

The real crux of the matter is that while Amazon’s Information Architecture (IA), layout, design, etc, may be extremely usable for their customers, that doesn’t mean the same set up will be usable for your customers. Let me give you an example. Many sites have copied Amazon.com’s checkout process and moved to a required registration. This works for Amazon because they have many, many repeat buyers that like to have Amazon hold their information to save them time. If you sell an one-time-buy, get in and get out item on your site (for instance an ebook), and you make customer’s register before they buy even though they will never need your item again, you may just scare them off for good.

Before you go off and try to copy everything Amazon does consider if its the right thing for your customers.