"Real" Online Bookstore - Start-up with amazing javascript

Hi, I'm the creator of Zoomii. I've been (mostly) lurking on Hacker News for some time now.

Thanks for the feedback. It is very slow on FF3 right now, due I think to its slow scaled-image rendering and tossing of uncompressed image data whenever leaving the tab. But it looks like using a CANVAS will actually make FF3 the fastest browser for Zoomii. Working on it. Hope to deploy that today.

While a really nice idea, it's inefficient and won't work. Time has proven over and over that technology requires a different perspective, and what we're used to doesn't always work. From the first attempts at flight by creating artificial wings and flapping them up and down to sowing machines that attempted to thread a needle through one side of a cloth and out the other, science has shown that what we're used just doesn't always translate to success in the machine world.

It's unbelievably pleasant to browse the bookshelves with zoomii! We'll see more star interaction designers like these guys in the future.

I suggest making the individual book targets inaccessible when you zoom out. At some levels I can't even read them yet clicking on them brings up a detailed box that covers everything else. You could just do a human readable thumbnail in a corner. Alternatively, you could make a click in certain level zoom into that genre of books.

It would also be nice to have a drop down list of categories that could get me to the correct area quickly. This would me like those signs that some stores have posted on the ceiling in the various sections (i.e. Reference, Fiction, Bestsellers...).

The zoom out/in method is not generally how I browse my local Borders. It makes me think about going to look at one book and then running up the stairs and staring down to find the next book I want to check out :).

This is a very cool concept but as noted on the website itself: painfully (unusable) slow in ff3. I would seriously "peruse" a virtual bookshelf of rare programming books for hours.. well minutes. but still that is a LOT of time in 2008.

I'm not sure the premise makes sense. Why try to mimic the thing that bookstores are already good at (physical presence, browsing books)?

It's a neat demo, but I'm not sure why I'd use this over Amazon, even if it was really smooth.

I really like it :)

I read the other comments before looking at your site and initially agreed with comatose_kid. I still think if I were looking for a specific item, or buying lots of items than I would prefer to use amazon's interface directly. However for "I think I'll buy a book to read over the weekend but don't know what" browsing I quite like it.

Suggestion: The navigation/search/shopping basket box on the top left takes up space and interrupts browsing (imho). Have you considered putting it in a bar going across the whole page, or alternatively adding a minimize/maximize button to it?

What about a Netflix-style pop-up for the books, instead of that big window? You can really fit all the info you need in one of those, and it would interrupt the browsing experience less.

This is awesome. Well done. Really cool idea.

Good concept. Navigation is slow though. You have to keep going back up to the corner and down to books. Having automatic side scrolling would make it incredibly easier.

I can actually see a viable business from this (in my head of course, the business plan is different). Great job.

Nice job on the write-up in RWW.

Too slow to be useful IMHO