There's ill-conceived user interface, there's bad user interface, and then there is that rarified category of UI so bad that third party vendors can make money selling ways to deal with it.
Most software falls under this category (witness the missing manual series).
That software documentation sucks is news to no one. However it's funny to see how acclimatized I've become to incredibly sucky UI in everyday objects. It takes a jolt from the outside to remind me that things weren't always this sucky.
The latest jolt came from my stumbling across the Consumer Reports Oyster awards - the worst product packaging designs of the year.
Top of their list are those plastic clamshell packages they use in electronics, packaging so lousy that two companies sell specialized tools to cut them open.
I dunno about you, but if I designed something that was so hard to open people had to invent tools just to get in - I'd go back to the drawing board.
4 comments:
Depends on the purpose for the package. I think that packages like the clamshell and any package containing a toy are made so that they cannot be opened. I think that it's an attempt at loss prevention, at least with the toys. They put the toy in an enormous package and then do everything but weld it in place, and it's harder to stuff in a shirt or bag and walk off with.
So, depending on your perspective, it could be a very good design, and the only way to "improve" it would be to make it even harder to open.
Oh, I'm sure that's their focus - I just think their focus is wrong.
They inconvenience ALL their paying customers with something that could be designed to work for loss prevention AND still be possible to open without special tools.
...or I'd start selling the tools to open the clamshells at an enormous markup to gullible half-wits.
Working in retail (back when I did that), returns on these items are nightmarish. Once those plastic containers have been mutilated, and you have to take it back for some reason like "It didn't fit". So there is nothing wrong with it, and we could sell it another customer, but now we have to patch it back into something salable and probably discount it to entice the customer to buy the opened package INSTEAD of the still sealed one.
You see this at Best Buy all of the freakin' time. I am one of the people who actually looks for these because 1) they are usually cheaper, 2) someone will vouch for the integrity of the item within (or else they wouldn't be selling damaged stuff) 3) I don't have to struggle with the packaging.
Others aren't so discerning.
Inconvenience is the name of the game. How many times has the theft alarm gone off as you exit with your purchased(with the increased price to cover theft and theft detection) goods in hand.
People still buy things packaged this way, largely without complaint.
I think stores know they can just look for the blood trail when these things get next to skin.
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