Have you ever bought a car sunshade that took you more time to fold than the time that your car will actually be parked out in the sun? Well, the new Zappos.com sunshade, exclusively from the Zappos Zollar Store, is kind of like that...or maybe it's just me.

This is an open letter response to the blog post here (which wouldn't allow comments). Though the author has gracefully agreed to post my reply on his follow up post soon.

Hi Andrew

Thanks for the letter, it not only contained some exceptionally valid points but it also kick-started a lot of chatter all over the web. The chatter, both supportive of your perspective and some anti, has been quite interesting to read as it has provided further (very useful) perspective.

I couldn't agree more regarding the details that you note will make a huge difference, such as: Clear Iconography, Visual Hierarchy, Unified Link Styles, Blurry Images (at times) and Who, What Why. If we had no external factors involved in our work it would be quite simple to address. I contemplated simply replying to your note with a few comments I got from my incredible team. These comments included: "should we just tell him we know, and we're working on it", "I couldn't agree more" and "wow, did he miss the boat on the design process." I would like to spend the next couple of paragraphs discussing in a bit more detail each of the comments noted above.

"Should we just tell him we know, and we're working on it?"
I think I said earlier, we are not even close to 100% pleased with the aesthetics of our site. We've had to very carefully figure out how to evolve (never redesign) our site experience. We've spent the better part of the year fixing a lot of under the hood pieces, building scalable processes and technology and are finally at a point where we will be dedicating more mindshare to aesthetics. You'd be happy to know, we hired Happy Cog to help us here (http://twitter.com/zeldman/statuses/3988360086).

"I couldn't agree more."
Well how could we agree more regarding your few key details section, you are 100% correct. I wish prior to writing your letter that you had some more facts regarding scale of our business, and current state of business to further validate this section and give all the folks talking about your post real information that lead to your proposed design solution.

"Wow, did he miss the boat on the design process."
I feel it is important to discuss this a bit. We are pretty keen on viewing design as a verb, not a noun here. We never finish designs, we never "redesign", we evolve. Business needs are always changing, economies change, customer needs change...hence how we tackle these issues need to evolve. What saddens me about the letter is not the critique nor your redesign (which was lovely by the way), rather it is the lack of mention around the most important pieces that need to be answered before entering into a design process. Who are we designing for? Is it paid traffic, organic? Is it for new customers? Existing customers? What percentage of folks search vs. browse? What are the top entrance pages? What is the impact of site speed/load time? I am barely scratching the surface on considerations that must be met before making design evolution decisions, there are many more but I am hoping you and your readers can get my point.

Really, I agree, our site plainly needs to evolve more than it has. It will, but evolution is a process. I am proud of the work my team has done in bringing the site from 1999-2003 as you described it and all within a year. You will soon see something closer to 2010 and eventually you will see an evolution that turns into a revolution. But it will take some more time and it certainly does not nor ever will include a “redesign.“

I appreciate your thoughts, your creativity and your care. I wish every critique I read (many per day) have a proposed solution with it like yours did. I just hope that as members of the design community we can do more acknowledging and addressing of all the difficulty that exists in business that affect the design process. If we can all rally around that concept and share ideas to solve those problems we all will be looking at prettier things more regularly, I guarantee it.

Thank you for posting this reply, looking forward to staying in touch!

Brian Kalma
Director of User Experience/Web Strategy, Zappos.com
(t) twitter.com/krianbalma
(f) facebook.com/krianbalma

Our cruise ship captain Jamie N., and Her first mate Maritza L., are borderline obsessed with Cakewrecks.com! That's why we decided to have an office wide cake wrecks competition! There were 7 awesome entries, and they all incorporated a bit of fun and weirdness into their recipes.

There were 3 winning categories:

There are so many types of chips and flavors to choose from, but today we ask you to tell us your favorite – or favorites if you can't narrow it down to one.

We got a chance to interview psychic, Justine Kenzer, who was in the Zappos headquarters volunteering her psychic abilities to read employees who wished to be read.

You can contact Justine for a reading at psychicgirl.com and via twitter @psychicgirl.

There are so many wonderful words in the world that it's hard to choose one to be your favorite. But somehow we all have a word that we enjoy more than others – for whatever reason. What's your favorite word?

Wishing our thrill seeking, outdoor loving Zapponians the best as they leave for the hike of the year, the 8000 meter challenge.

I'm sure they'll make us proud!

A lot of people call The Naturist (Gavin McInnes) an outdoor expert. We completely agree...he is an expert at what not to do while outdoors. Fortunately, he has one thing going for him, we equipped him in the new Teva® Riva. Thanks to features like an aggressive lug design and a waterproof and breathable membrane, Gavin can be sure that even when everything goes wrong, his feet will still be comfortable and protected by the Riva. To find out more about The Naturist and the Riva, check out: www.zappos.com/teva.

Yes, it's that time again! We semi-retired the Zappos Cheer Up videos a few months ago, but we felt that everyone could use a little cheer-me-up right now, so we are up and running again! And to start us out, we aren't actually cheering someone up, we are just celebrating our good Zappos buddy Sarah having her baby yesterday!

If you know someone who needs cheering up, email zapposcheerup@zappos.com.

Enjoy, and Congrats, Sarah!!!

We at Zappos.com want to wish everyone around the world a happy Labor Day! Our employees go above and beyond tryig to serve the customer to the absolute best of their ability, and the Blogs team would like to thank each and every person who work so hard for their customers, their fellow employees and themselves. And we want to thank you for shopping with Zappos, visiting our blogs, Twitter and Facebook pages and getting us to where we are today. We owe it to you!

HAPPY LABOR DAY, from Zappos.com.

Yesterday we had an unhealthy food cook-off, and I had some leftover bacon, 1 piece to be exact. I asked everyone if they wanted it, but it sat around for a couple hours. Around 1PM Pacific time I placed said bacon in Brett's bag. A few hours later we had Andrew J. Rosenthal from Happier.com in the office for an interview/tour. While I had the camera out I asked Brett to show us what was in his bag. You won't believe what happens next.

At the beginning of the month, Ros S. decided to celebrate her friend Lucille the Ball's 4th birthday with a contest to guess her weight. Four years ago, Ros was given the idea for making a name badge ball from a guest that was visiting Zappos. He had just been to another office that had a large rubber band ball (we have our own giant rubber band ball at our Kentucky warehouse), and thought it would be funny if we did something with the name badges we give to each guest that visits Zappos.

Four years later, Lucille is still growing strong. She is now an astounding 13.4 pounds, and 41 inches round. Many participated in guessing Lucille's weight, and Ros has chosen the four closest entries as winners!

Here are the four Winners:
Keith G. - 13.4 pounds (yes, he guessed the exact weight).
Maria E. - 13.5 pounds
Shauna S. - 13.5 Pounds
Stacy H. - 13 pounds

Heather bet Ebonique a dollar a day that she wouldn't wear her purple Chucks for a month. Ebonique took her up on that bet, and in the spirit of Core Value #3, she one uped the bet and wore uber hip 80's outfits along with her purple Chuck Taylors the entire month of August. Well, every day except the 31st that is! How long can you wear your Chuck Taylors?

In the age of Lightning fast internet and HD television, it's easy to forget the ultimate family and friend uniter – The board game! There are too many to name, but please feel free to try!

What's your favorite board game?

Our friends at Mizuno came by the office last week to show off their Mobile Running Lab, which houses their signature Precision Fit Machine and every shoe size imaginable. Over 20 Zappos team members received a biomechanical running analysis to valuate several different aspects of their gait, foot arch, posture etc. The purpose of the Precision Fit Machine is to help runners find the perfect Mizuno Running shoe to fit their feet. A big thanks to Mizuno for coming out and helping get us ready for the Las Vegas Rock and Roll Marathon!