Effective vs Ineffective Design
Everything is designed — some successful while others fall short.
Effective Design: Hellmann’s Mayo Squeeze Bottle
Traditional mayonnaise often comes in a jug, requiring a butter knife for scooping. However, I recently switched to a squeeze bottle, changing the mayo experience for the better.
This design follows a typical ketchup and mayonnaise design (which brings up the point, why was mayo designed this way in the first place?). Ideal for everyday folks spreading mayo on sandwiches, the squeeze bottle offers numerous advantages:
- Effortless Dispensing: A quick squeeze effortlessly releases the mayo.
- Reduced Cleanup: No need to wash spoons or butter knives.
- Enhanced Portion Control: Achieve precise portions without a mess.
Also, this mayo bottle has slight grooves on the edges of the bottle not only providing comfortable squeezing and also better grip while opening the bottle. The cone shaped top provides a consistent, controllable, and portioned way of receiving mayonnaise and affords placement of the bottle head down, allowing for the mayonnaise to fill to the brim, streamlining the dispensing process.
Ineffective Design: Shu Uemura Shampoo Bottle
The Shu Uemura shampoo bottle, despite its premium price tag (~$55), is a great example of poor communication design.
This bottle is sleek from first glance, but this sleekness actually becomes a great downfall in the shower. In the wet and slippery environment of the shower, the cylindrical and smooth shape of the bottle, coupled with its hard material, offers no grip. This flaw makes it exceptionally challenging to squeeze out shampoo, especially when nearing the bottom of the bottle.
Also, the text on the bottle suffers from almost illegible small and dark font that blends into the background. This prevents users from identifying the ingredients in the shampoo, creating a potential hassle for in-person shoppers and for those with particular hair considerations. The limited accessibility of information implies that the product may targetted primarily to affluent individuals who are brand loyal and have extensively researched the shampoo. From a marketing standpoint, this approach severely limits the reach of the product, failing to engage a broader audience.
Final Thoughts
The main takeaway here is that sufficient user research and testing is very important for products as in the example of the shampoo bottle, Shu Uemura could have easily caught this problem through user testing of their shampoo bottle (instead of just the shampoo formula).