Comment by 0xbadcafebee
3 years ago
> consumer products live or die on usability
Only consumer products in a competitive market, where the UX is everything. Your toothpaste does not live or die on usability; it's toothpaste. It could be less useable than another toothpaste and you probably would never notice. Maybe you buy it because you're brand-loyal, or it advertised a new completely made-up quality, or it's just on sale. Sometimes the UX is just a minor aspect of the whole, like car mediacenter interfaces. Stuff sold by quasi-monopolies don't compete at all; nobody cancels their Comcast Family TV Package because the TV guide's UX sucks.
I think that essentially all the toothpastes for sale at CVS have passed a two-part usability test: squeezable and pleasant-tasting.
It's true that usability might not provide the edge in a commodotized market; but passing some minimum threshold might be a necessary condition for success. Imagine trying to sell a toothpaste that was hard to get out of the tube.
A lot of the least usable things in my life -- paper straws, smart TVs -- just look like consumer products, but their actual goal is something different.
> Your toothpaste does not live or die on usability; it's toothpaste.
Actually it does. Is it hard to get the cap back on so it spills in the sink? Can you squeeze the tube so it doesn't just shoot out but rather can be metered out?
The old aluminium tubes were great in that you could roll them up from the end -- now I have to use a small claim because the plastic ones are too springy and won't hold a crimp, but I guess it's acceptable to most people.
I'd rather buy the toothpaste that has the flip top level/flat cap even if it's upside down on the counter because it's easier to use than a twist cap. UX improvement won on that one for me. Same with flossers - I like the little plastic picks with floss a lot better than getting the reel out and twisting it around my money maker fingers.