12 Apr 2005

Amazon DVD Rentals

I’ve signed up with Amazon UK’s DVD rental service, and so far it’s looking good. There’s a broad range of titles available, it’s easy to get started, and discs are dispatched quickly. A colleague’s been using it for a while and is similarly impressed.

However, it’s not yet properly integrated into the site’s interface. There’s no way to get to your rental list from the top-right area containing links to your basket and account info (you have to go into the DVD section and it’s in there as a subsection). Even if you’ve signed up and are logged-in, pages for titles available to rent feature a huge redundant box promoting the rental service (as does the home page), and lists of DVDs don’t indicate which can be rented. It all feels bolted-on and needs some IA/usability work.

Blockbuster offers a similar service, and there are several smaller competitors, so I can’t see Netflix ever bothering to launch over here.