I’m not one to think of products like soap or tube socks, as having a user interface, but in the practical sense, they do. We tend to lump product user interface design, into the parent category of product design. None-the-less, there is a distinction here. In some products, we can refer to the user interface as Ergonomics, such as the chair I’m seated in. In others, this doesn’t seem to be appropriate, such as a bag of cookies (or, in my case, a can of cookies).
Thursday night, after a nice meal at Yo Yo Sushi, we decided to stop in and pick up a few things at the drug store. While we were standing in line to check out, Lauren buckled at an impulse rack and purchased some cookies that were on sale 2 cans for $5.
I have to say, they didn’t look bad. They were described as Delicious Caramel Toffee Cookies, and two for five bucks. Okay, maybe the sake from the restaurant was helping this impulse, but the deal was sealed and we never looked back.
Fig. 1
That is, until the following morning when we were having a hankering for some delicious caramel toffee cookies. That’s where the bad cookie UI design comes in.
First, Lauren tried opening the can. She removed the strip of tape from around the lip of the lid and proceeded to try to pull the lid to the can off, with her fingers. Grunt, Moan, Whimper! Next, being a man (and feeling I should do something about that), I decided to step in and offer my manly strength. Grunt, Moan, Whimper! ( ego crushed ).
So indeed, serious problems call for serious solutions. Out comes my all-in-one, portable cookie tool ( pictured at the top ), which by the way was purchased from an impulse rack as well.
Bang, Crunch, Slice! ( see Fig 1.)
Ah, cookies at last (wipes sweat from brow). They were lousy by the way. But as I reached in for another, I noticed the cause of all my frustration, Poor UI Design!. Seriously. This wasn’t like a bag of potato chips you can’t open. That’s just poor manufacturing or wrong materials. This was a case of poor design. The lid, you see, did not fit over the top of the can, as you might expect, seeing as the lip was on the outside. It actually went inside the can and then curled over the top of the can to form a pinched lip. This is similar to how the top of a can of soup is sealed to the can. The difference being, they expect you to use a can opener to get to your soup, not to your cookies.
I suspect that the cookies in question were actually a joke item left over from the Walgreens April Fool’s Day rack, though the employee setting up the sale rack 9 months later failed to mention this fact. When you finally got it open with your industrial strenght pliers, I half expected coiled snakes to pop out.