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r+d

Posts on innovation, user experience, research and design

Heinz's Ketchup Revolution

As proof that nothing should ever get too comfortable with its position in the world, the Heinz ketchup packet's 42 year run at the top of the fast food empire may soon be coming to an end. Heinz recently announced a new package design that brings several enhancements to the ketchup packet experience. While I had never really considered it before, looking at the rationale and the proposed redesign, it absolutely looks like a win.

One of the more interesting passages in the Christian Science Monitor article on the subject covers Heinz's R+D work:

Designers found that what worked at a table didn't work where many people use ketchup packets: in the car. So two years ago, Heinz bought a used minivan for the design team members so they could give their ideas a real road test.The team studied what each passenger needed. The driver wanted something that could sit on the armrest. Passengers wanted the choice of squeezing or dunking. Moms everywhere wanted a packet that held enough ketchup for the meal and didn't squirt onto clothes so easily.
First off, kudos to Heinz for committing to the a real-life ketchup lab for its designers. That aside, it's clear to see how this field research led directly to the new packet's benefits, which are as follows:
  • It's purported to be easier to open
  • It offers a dipping option to better enable ketchup consumption on the go, particularly for drivers
  • It holds three times as much ketchup as the old design so you don't have to open as many packages
  • It uses less packaging material than three packets
  • The new packet is recyclable
All of these characteristics seem to be hitting on all the right experience pain points the R+D team observed and are also reflected in my own rather extensive field experience with the subject matter. My particular field lab is the local Chick-fil-A. I'm sure you have your equivalent.

Moreover, the sustainable attributes are hitting on all the right marketing notes to improve adoption. Even with incremental increased cost to restaurants, many of the larger ones interests will likely be at last partially piqued by the packet's eco-benefits as further opportunities to demonstrate their commitment to greener initiatives and products. That is, of course, to the extent that a plastic is greener and more sustainable than something that can't be recycled.

While it's sad to see such a hallmark of the fast food experience on the ropes, all good things must one day end. And when you get right down to it, the packet was never all that great. It just just did what it was supposed to do. In the useful-usable-desirable hierarchy of products, it was squarely in the "useful" end of the scale, never really attempting to achieve more. To its credit, Heinz took that leap forward, in the midst of an epic downturn no less. But as a spokesperson for Heinz said: "We created the packet in 1968," he said. "Consumer complaints started around 1969."


I guess it was about time.

Interesting Trivia: Heinz sells more than 11 billion ketchup packets every year.

     
Click here to download:
Heinzs_Ketchup_Revolution_tag_.zip (367 KB)

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Filed under  //   CX   design   eco   green   Heinz   ketchup   packaging   UCD   UX  
Posted February 8, 2010
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Common Sense Fail

I have been needing to buy some new work (as in outdoor work) socks for a while now so I went to a big-box retail store near my home. I'll keep the retailer nameless just to be nice. In any case, perhaps because inventories are ridiculously low in most stores, when I found the sock display there were only two packages of black work socks left. Each package was supposed to have 3 pairs of socks in them. 

Picking the second package up, I realized that there were only two pairs in them. Rechecking the packaging it very clearly stated "3 pairs" so I figured it was either a return or a botched run at the packaging plant. Either way, the socks looked brand new and the packaging even looked pristine. I thought - "No big deal, I'll just ask for a discount on the defective merchandise at checkout." 

So I get a few more things and then head to checkout. At the checkout I pointed out the defective item to the cashier and said "Hey, so this is supposed to have 3 socks in it, but it only has 2, so can you knock 30% of the price off?" I said it almost in passing because it seemed like such an obvious request. The product is fine, it's just physically missing 1/3 of itself, but the other 2/3 are perfectly fine. This is as easy a price reduction in retail as there could ever be. No scratch and dent haggling, no pointing a dings in boxes or packaging tape. This is just math.

Without even batting an eye he blurted out his response "I can give you 10% off."

I sort of smiled and said, "I know that's the standard policy, but this isn't broken, it's just missing about 30% of the socks that are supposed to be in there." I figured that if I just explained the logic it would make sense.

He was looking at the pair of socks and didn't even bother to look at me with his response:"10% is our policy." I laughed and said - "Really? Ok fine, I don't want them." At which point he threw them in some bin gave me my receipt and literally walked off to talk to another cashier. Nice. Good use of common sense and customer service, sir.

So here's the result:
  • I didn't buy the socks (lost revenue)
  • The socks will have to get restocked (labor cost)
  • If no one buys them, they will go into some black hole of cost accounting as a write-off to the supplier (costing someone for a perfectly good albeit mispackaged product)
  • If someone does buy them inadvertently thinking there are 3 pairs in the package, that customer will be angry and either return them for a refund (starting the cycle over again) or at the very least feel like this retailer got the best of them (reputation/brand cost)
All of this could have been avoided if this company empowered its cashiers with the ability to make common sense, point of sale, decisions. I'm sure I could have pressed to speak to a manager, but come on. This is simple math.

I'm sure these policies are in place for a good reason but this was so clear cut. The box wasn't damaged. I wasn't asking for 60% off. I was asking for exactly the amount that the product was "defective" which could be numerically calculated instantly. 

Fail.

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Posted February 4, 2010
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The Real Chore of Design

 

There's a lot to like in this BusinessWeek article by Diego Rodriguez from IDEO "Why Design Matters". He discusses how the term "design" is often compartmentalized as a noun. Something either has, or does not have, good design. The design is compelling or it is not. The problem, as he accurately explains is that relegating design to this role as a descriptor of aesthetics is that such a treatment belittles the power and systematic nature of the design process. 
As Diego says:

Throughout history design as a verb, also known these days as design Thinking, has created things of enormous value to humanity. The Bill of Rights, the Aravind Eye Care System, Medecins Sans Frontières, and the Marshall Plan will never show up in a Design Within Reach catalog. And yet each of these amazing achievements of humanity was designed. Apple, a company justifiably known for its design, must be applauded for the way it lets its designers and engineers design things to the hilt. But how Apple has created and captured shocking amounts of market value in the music (iTunes + iPod) and telecommunication (iPhone) industries is due as much to skillful systems engineering and infrastructure development as it is to compelling aesthetics.

Success has many parents, and good design is only one of them. For every success like the iPod, there are scores of beautiful market offerings that failed because no one bothered to think about how to manufacture, deliver, sell, support, and retire them in ways that met people's needs.

Thinking about products independent of the environments of their use is a fool's game. Rather, spending our time conceptualizing how we can systematically develop solutions that tap into meaningful goals and needs of customers is what design is all about. 
Aesthetics may generate consumer appeal, but such visceral infatuations quickly wear thin if the product does not address value denials in some important area of your customers' or constituents' lives.

Outputs of this process must seek to immediately and intuitively integrate into and improve upon the lives of the people that use them. This is why the process of design, good design, is so hard. This is why the real chore of achieving "good design" happens well before anyone even sees the product. Good design requires thoughtful consideration of your audience, their needs, goals and aspirations and then channeling that understanding into the creation of an output that makes meaningful, positive change for them.

Photo via sherrymain

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Filed under  //   Apple   design   process  
Posted February 3, 2010
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Innovation and Imaginary Tigers

Like many people around the world, reading Calvin and Hobbes was always the highlight of the Sunday morning paper. The weekly strips were good, but those sprawling comic masterpieces on Sunday were worth every penny of the newspaper by themselves. The strip's creator, Bill Watterson, has always been known for being a legendary recluse so when he stopped writing the strip in 1995 (final comic shown above), Calvin and Hobbes went off the grid. Completely. This was a sad day for me. While the final comic itself was a fittingly poignant end to a wonderful work of art, it didn't dull the harsh reality that Calvin and Hobbes was over. Sort of like watching Jordan's last championship as a Chicago Bull, it was the end of an era. You just couldn't savor enough of the experience. What was I supposed to read next Sunday?

Now, 15 years after the last strip ran, Watterson has emerged for a brief interview with the local press. While the interview is short, there is a great passage in there that speaks to creativity and passion, which is applicable to all innovators and creatives:
I just tried to write honestly, and I tried to make this little world fun to look at, so people would take the time to read it. That was the full extent of my concern. You mix a bunch of ingredients, and once in a great while, chemistry happens. I can't explain why the strip caught on the way it did, and I don't think I could ever duplicate it. A lot of things have to go right all at once.
There's a lot to glean in that one little passage. Honesty, understanding your audience, meticulous craftsmanship, experimentation. All of these things coalesce in the portfolio of any great brand, artist or innovator. And he's right, even if you have a great product and understand your market better than anyone, sometimes you still need a little luck to go your way. Lucky for us, all the stars aligned for Calvin and Hobbes.
Bonus: There's more in the interview about going out on top of one's game (easier said than done) and life continuing on for all the days after you've had your all-time best seller (reminds me of a fantastic recent TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert). Worth a read.

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Filed under  //   Calvin and Hobbes   creativity   innovation  
Posted February 1, 2010
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Conceptualizing AR

No commentary required. Excellent conceptualization of augmented reality by Keiichi Matsuda as part of his master's in architecture. Tomorrow's now today.

via BLDGBLOG

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Filed under  //   AR   architecture   augmented reality   HUD   ixd   ui   ux  
Posted January 26, 2010
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The Colour of the Inner Content

CDs are on the way out (or already long gone for me) as a form factor for music delivery, but one of the innocent bystanders in this shift to digital is album art. Sure you can still get album art and packaging as a digital image, but it's not the same, obviously. There's just something about the smell of the aromatic dyes of a nice glossy album cover that is very familiar and rewarding when you open up your new disc. Sigh. 

That said, CDs and their covers aren't dead yet. Hubero Kororo recently worked with the band Uceroz to come up with a very interesting CD package. Initially the packaging is white with only the black text on it, but when you open the package up, an ink packet is ruptured causing the ink to bleed out onto the white canvas of the CD, resulting in unique album art on each disc. That's how I would explain it, but I personally like Hubero's version. 

Hubero remarks:
The design of the cover also reflects [the  musical] motif. Like when you are listening to this piece of music for the first time being still untouched by the unique experience of Ivan Palacky´s peculiar performance, also the album cover makes you feel like that. After opening (tearing off the seal), the outer minimalistic graphic of the snow-white package is irretrievably disturbed by a stain, which turns to the colour of the inner content.

Irretrievably disturbed by a stain. Nice 

Some additional interesting info about the project and the band via Hubero's description:
  • Uceroz is a new music brand by Ivan Palacký, a musician playing an amplified knitting machine called Dopleta 160 (180). 
  • The title "Uceroz" is an abbreviation created from two Czech words : „učesán a rozcuchán“. It consists of two editions, where „učesán“ represents a smoother kind of musical expressiveness however „rozcuchán“ tends to be more experimental.
  • Depending on the technique of opening, (some extreme technics of opening have already been noticed, like using a drill in order to create a peculiar mark.) some patterns arise, which give each piece a certain uniqueness.
Here's the video of the opening:

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Filed under  //   art   design   music   packaging   visual  
Posted January 26, 2010
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Zoomable Paper Map

Map^2 is a interesting, zoomable paper map of London. While the concept is intuitively simple, the elegance of the design really doesn't come across until you watch the video.

via kottke

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Filed under  //   design  
Posted January 25, 2010
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Flight Distance

Interesting passage from Richard Dawkins new book "The Greatest Show on Earth" covering the concept of "flight distance". I'm not familiar with the term but it has analogies to many things in everyday life.

Real wolves are pack hunters. Village dogs are scavengers that frequent middens and rubbish dumps. Wolves scavenge too, but they are not temperamentally suited to scavenging human rubbish because of their long “flight distance”. If you see an animal feeding, you can measure its flight distance by seeing how close it will let you approach before fleeing. For any given species in any given situation, there will be an optimal flight distance, somewhere between too risky or foolhardy at the short end, and too flighty or risk-averse at the long end. Individuals that take off too late when danger threatens are more likely to be killed by that very danger. Less obviously, there is such a thing as taking off too soon. Individuals that are too flighty never get a square meal, because they run away at the first hint of danger on the horizon. It is easy for us to overlook the dangers of being too risk-averse. We are puzzled when we see zebras or antelopes calmly grazing in full view of lions, keeping no more than a wary eye on them.

We are puzzled, because our own risk aversion (or that of our safari guide) keeps us firmly inside the Land Rover even though we have no reason to think there is a lion within miles. This is because we have nothing to set against our fear. We are going to get our square meals back at the safari lodge. Our wild ancestors would have had much more sympathy with the risk-taking zebras. Like the zebras, they had to balance the risk of being eaten against the risk of not eating. Sure, the lion might attack; but, depending on the size of your troop, the odds were that it would catch another member of it rather than you. And if you never ventured on to the feeding grounds, or down to the waterhole, you’d die anyway, of hunger or thirst. It is a lesson in economic trade-offs.

Full excerpt here

via kottke | @linklog
Photo: Stig Nygaard

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Filed under  //   economics  
Posted January 22, 2010
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Google Adds Wayfinding Inukshuk Everywhere

 

I just continue to be impressed with the development and innovation coming out of Google. Using a combination of crowdsourced content contributed via Google Map Maker, and some good old fashioned data power, Google has been able to transform Indian road-based directions to landmark-based. While the whole post on Google's Blog is worth a read, here are the two juicy research nuggets:

We found that using landmarks in directions helps for two simple reasons: they are easier to see than street signs and they are easier to remember than street names. Spotting a pink building on a corner or remembering to turn after a gas station is much easier than trying to recall an unfamiliar street name. Sometimes there are simply too many signs to look at, and the street sign drowns in the visual noise. A good landmark always stands out.

We also discovered that there are three situations in which people resort to landmarks. The first is when people need to orient themselves — for instance, they just exited a subway station and are not sure which way to go. Google Maps would say: "Head southeast for 0.2 miles." A person would say: "Start walking away from the McDonald's." The second situation is when people use a landmark to describe a turn: "Turn right after the Starbucks." The third use, however, is the most interesting. We discovered that often people simply want to confirm that they are still on the right track and haven't missed their turn.

Why this is great? The obvious reason is that this form of getting and giving directions is instinctual. When I read Google's post I was immediately reminded of some complementary wayfinding insights from Jared Spool of UIE from a few years back. When describing wayfinding on websites he brought up the concept of inukshuk.

Per Wikipedia:
Inukshuk vary in shape and size, with deep roots in the Inuit culture. The word inuksuk means "something which acts for or performs the function of a person." The inuksuk may have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for hunting grounds, or as a food cache. Historically the most common type of inuksuit is a single stone positioned in an upright manner.
The concept of using landmarks, in the Inuit's case man-made towers of rocks, (which makes sense considering not much stands out in an icy plain in the dead of winter) goes way back. We all seem to have this directional system baked in. Humanity, via Google, has simply reached the point where we are now able to turn everyday landmarks into inukshuks on a grand scale. That little fruitstand on the side of 104th Street? It's an inukshuk now. So is the fountain across the street. 

Tagging is the new inukshuk building. Google Maps is simply enabling the ability to see these inukshuks in context. Whereas the Inuit assigned meaning to towers of stones that was only understood by the tacit knowledge of their culture, Google is enabling anyone to assign meaning to anything in such a way that everyone can interpret that meaning in any number of different contexts. Google is helping us read and interpret ambient meaning, in real time, as we go about our day. 

It's just in time wayfinding.

But this is just the start. A quick look at the other tools in Google's arsenal and you can begin to see a more complete picture of what we may be hearing in the not too distant future on our turn-by-turn directions read aloud. Say you're an amateur astronomer, what if Google allows you to sign up for an Google Sky-enabled feed that you can import into your turn-by-turn directions. All of a sudden the crowdsourced inukshuks are there, but so are spatial inukshuks. Your drive to the movie theater just got a lot more interesting:

"You're approaching a Taco Bell. Turn right onto Highway 12 after the Taco Bell. You'll stay on this street for 3 miles. As you finish your turn, you'll see the Atlanta skyline directly ahead of you. Just above the Bank of America Plaza, you'll see the moon rising. It's the first full moon of the year. While you can't see it because of the ambient light, just to the right of the moon, Mars, Jupiter and Venus are aligned with Earth. This is the last time these planets will be aligned with Earth for 14 years..."

History buffs could import historical overlays. "The Walmart you are about to pass by was the site of the first skirmish in the Civil War in Georgia..."

The possibilities are endless.

Understanding where you are, what you're seeing via tagged landmarks opens up a tremendous opportunity to enrich the world around us as we're experiencing it. It's just a fascinating time to be seeing technology being molded to serve humans in richer and more familiar ways than ever before.

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Filed under  //   Google   GPS   innovation   inukshuk   wayfinding  
Posted January 21, 2010
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Memorable Packaging: Samurai Vodka

Checking with Google, this has already made the rounds around the Internet but it's still new (and interesting) to me so I thought I'd post. Talk about memorable packaging. Shouldn't the top part be sliding the other way though? Down the slope? Anyway, it's still cool.  via core77 | dieline

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Filed under  //   design   packaging  
Posted January 13, 2010
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