With Amazon's testing culture, I would be willing to bet that that a/b tested this and 'Your' heavily won over the rest of the variations.

Many of their 'controversial' or 'undesigned' implementations were data driven.

I would have to disagree.

I believe Amazon thought about this more than it seems. It does help remind the customer that this menu refers to "Your" things. Without that label, this could easily refer to a ton of other sections on the site. Especially sections like "Cloud Drive, Prime Instant Video, Prime Membership" seems more like they refer to marketing pages for those things. You could argue that its under the "Your Account" section but I would bet that plenty of customers would ignore or miss that because its such a minimal part of the menu.

One thing you get while "scanning" is an overwhelming sense that this menu controls "Your" things on Amazon. Its more clear, which I think is more usable.

Interesting. I get using the word 'Your' and personalizing an experience and putting ownership in a customer's hands, but yeah there is a point of overkill. And Amazon's usage is overkill. Anytime I'm looking for something in my account (usually Orders, History, or Wishlist) I quickly get lost in the piles and piles of text.

I also get that adding 'Your' can help distinguish between the 'Games & Software' marketing section of the site and the 'Games & Software' that you as a customer owns. But that should be obvious as the 'Your' items are listed under the 'Your Account' tab. It's redundant.

Thanks for creating the cool gif!

On a completely different topic, but ties in well with the whole usability discussion of the dropdown here.

What I find annoying is the way the "Your account" dropdown works… every time I hover it, I expect the dropdown to appear, but the damn thing has a delay. So when it doesn't instantly appear with the hover, I subconsciously click on the button to make it appear.

And then of course, the dropdown appears but I only see it for a second before I get taken to my account page.

And like this every single time. I think that's bad usability… why the delay? Why not just make it appear the moment I hover it?

TL;DR: That hover delay is bs.

I think people OVERESTIMATE how much "thinking" goes on at companies like Amazon, etc. This is a huge site that a lot of different people/departments manage. I wouldn't be surprised if this is just "menu bloat" from years of new account features.

Sure it was A/B tested, but did they A/B test the best options? Did they even think of the best options? Should we be giving in to exactly what the data/user wants? Or should we serve them what they need to be more efficient?

Great design change can often be disliked at first because it goes against the grain, but once it becomes understood and customary it can greatly improve lives. Small adjustments like this implemented all over Amazons site could save people time and make more sales.

There is a lotofinformationaboutthis. Some really interesting ideas.

Haha! Yesterday I realised how long this menu item was...Actually in my head I assumes that my messages would be accessible from there by seeing how long it is.

I reckon the Lovefilm (Amazon Instant) and Music sections should sit as another hierarchy. I don't know why Amazon wants us to believe that ordering physical products and consuming online should be a part of the same experience. I guess they don't want to be as bad as Apple with iCloud, iTunes, Apps store, Apple store, etc. which are providing complete heterogeneous experiences...

One has to ask themselves if this is really a design decision or product decision... though in most organizations, including my own, it would almost definitely fall on design, for better or for worse.

You've raised an interesting question here. Most of the good arguments have already been posted so I'm just going to say that I'm glad to see there are some good posts on this site!

You will be surprised of that many things that sites doesn't cover at all. In fact, many of the development aren't covered as you may think. Who knows? maybe that menu is a corporate dispute.

I never deployed something who wasn't approved by the company. How can you prove something is better if you want to go contra-corriente.

So much better.

Just thought about this the other day! I definitely agree with Caleb on everything he said.

Another thing about this navigation... Is it just me or is it confusing to have "Not ___" in front of the Sign Out button?

Wow, yes that is so much easier to read!

Also, you missed 2. "Manage your content..." and "Change your charity"