Often, insights and new ideas hit you in the shower. In most cases because you allow your mind to wander, but in this case the insight is related to the items at hand. Namely, a shampoo bottle.
The bad bottle
For various reason, numerous shampoo bottles populate my shower stall. Recently I had the opportunity to have two bottles of the same brand, just with different additives. And a slight twist.
The first one was impossible to open. I kept slipping on the little round nub since it was wet and soapy. It wouldn’t budge until I wedged a nail under it and applied leverage. (See? Physics is good for something, after all.) The second bottle, a day later, opened just fine on the first attempt.
Small difference, big result
Now I wish I could say that the difference struck me at this moment, and I investigated immediately. Truth is, it took a few more days for me to realize that there is a difference. After a small test series the difference became clear. Bottle #1 had the nub made out of the same material as the main bottle - shiny, smooth plastic. Bottle #2 had a slightly rougher surface. Almost imperceptible when dry, but a huge help when you’ve got soapy fingers.
Lessons learned?
One, it’s the tiny details that make a huge difference. #1 is almost unusable, #2 just works. Yet the change is minute. Once functionality is there, the gain is in the subtle tweaks.
Two, unless confronted with bad design it’s hard to recognize good design. I probably wouldn’t have noticed the surface difference without having suffered through the bad design first. If you’re designing something, come up with at least two slightly different versions.
And three, use your own product as your customer would - not all design improvements are immediately obvious just by thinking about them. The proof is always in the pudding.
Tags: design
This is so cute! Are you using that apple scented stuff?
I agree that bad design can only be noticed against good design. It happened to me once I started to use Gmail. It solved so many problems I didn’t notice I had, but that were shaping the way I organized my email. I also read an article about how the success of iPod came not from careful focus group studies, but from giving the customer what they didn’t know they wanted.
It takes a lot of smarts and creativity to make a good product that sells.