The children's area at the Barnes & Noble store lacks comfortable seating for parents and children to sit and browse books together. There are a few small, uncomfortable chairs and the large space feels messy and uninviting. Additionally, finding a specific book in the store's inventory can be difficult without a way to check availability online. When customers need help, all store traffic seems funneled to the customer service desk in the center of the store, but associates sometimes seem unaware of customers needing assistance in other areas.

1. Observation Exercise
Barnes and Noble
David Sebek

2. The Children's Area
at Barnes & Noble
The children's area at my
neighborhood B&N does
not offer comfortable
spaces for the children and
parents to sit down and
look at books they might
want to buy.
There are some chairs but
they are very small and
uncomfortable for parents.
This large area could be
more comfortable but it
looks messy and
uninviting. Many people
would not want to spend a
lot of time in this space.

3. Accessing the Store's
Holdings
I was looking for a
book for my son. I
did not find it on the
shelf and could not
find an associate.
It would have been
very easy to find what
I was looking for if I
had access to what
the store currently
had in stock. It would
have saved me time
and frustration.
I eventually found the
book, with help from
an associate, at a
store thirty minutes
away.

4. The Funnel
It seems all traffic is
funneled to the center of
the store where
associates work the
customer service desk.
It might be nice if you
could alert them of an
issue from the section
you are in by texting your
question using your
phone.
They seemed to do a lot
of standing around,
unaware there might be a
number of customers with
questions or having a
hard time finding
something.

5. Video's at B&N
B&N seems to want to
sell a lot of DVD's and
Blu Ray videos.
They only have one
small tv displaying a
video.
If they wanted to get
more out of their video
section they want to
hang more tv's or get
ahead of the digital
revolution and liquidate
their video section and
replace it with a video
subscription service.

6. Log into Wi-Fi
I noticed two people
have trouble logging
into the free Wi-Fi
using their laptops.
I had no problems but
it seems other
customers needed
more help.
Also when someone
would check out they
were constantly being
asked to join the
rewards program.
It took a long time for
the cashier to explain
and slowed down the
check-out process.
They may want to
revisit this process