End-to-End User Experience
Hard to open packaging and misleading and incomprehensible user manuals are two ways in which companies unwittingly tell their customers: “We don’t care what happens once you have bought the product!”
Increasingly customers are taking offence at such treatment and are seeking out products and brands that offer a positive end-to-end user experience.
Packaging Usability
There’s a fight going on out there!
Consumers are arming themselves to the teeth with box cutters, crowbars, steak knives, pliers, hacksaws, scissors and … teeth! Even in one instance (reports National Geographic) with a Colt 45! But they’re not winning. Hard to open packaging sends about 74,000 customers a year to the hospital, in the USA and UK!
Admittedly, customers don't buy a product for the packaging, but the design qualities and handling characteristics of packaging can play an important role in customer choice. When deciding between two otherwise similar products, it is likely that the customer will choose the product that suggests the best overall experience - which may mean most visible, most attractive, coolest looking brand, highest quality, clearest information, easiest handling and opening, or easiest to store, depending on the context of the purchase.
- How well does your packaging perform?
- What message does your packaging convey?
We can help you answer those questions. We understand packaging usability. We can help you make your customer’s initial experience a good one.
User Manual Usability
Sometimes having no map at all is better than having a map that is wrong!
User manuals do not have a good reputation. In fact in a recent USA Today poll that asked readers “Which technological things have the ability to confuse you?” user manuals came out top! Increasingly companies are rethinking the way they approach user manuals.
- How do your user manuals perform?
- Have you user tested your user manuals?
We have extensive experience of user manual usability. We know how to test manuals for usability, and we know what works and what doesn’t.
What next?
Tell us about your needs for more user-friendly packaging or user manuals. We will work with you to prepare a plan of action that precisely meets your needs. Call Philip Hodgson on 312.238.9490, or send him an e-mail.