Being a user of the internet for about 14 years now, I would consider myself as an advanced user of this medium. However, I just tried to acquire a train ticket on the Trenitalia website and it took me about half an hour to get it done.

Trenitalia always had an awful site, that I knew, but as I went there today and saw the new, modern design I hoped that functionality had improved, too. Well, let's put it like that: I was wrong. I probably would even find it hard to explain how you can finally buy ticket over this site and I guess that a lot of more basic users or users with less need to buy one would fail in the process.

This experience is just part of something that I notice more and more recently. Registration or sign-up processes for products or services are often irrationally difficult and complicated. Is it still too early for good navigation, simple sign up, click and buy? I mean, it's a paradox, because making something easier should be simple, right?

I know that it is not as simple as it sounds because it happens to me at work as well; putting something as easy as possible or facilitating a fluid navigational flow is sometimes quite tricky. Still, some e-commerce site or service providers would do well to have a look at Amazon or ITunes and adopt some of their principles. Google Checkout also could help them a lot, I guess.