It is easy to be very focussed on your own industry and to always think that Usability is a HCI issue alone.
A series of events culminating in my enlightenment last week has made me reappraise the Usability world. I had a bit of fun as well, so please don't take this post too seriously folks ;-)
It started a couple of weeks ago when I was surprised to find a little foil packet with a Tazo branded playing card-like object with a Simpsons theme in the packet of flavoured chips (this is an Australian Blog, so some of you outside Oz might know them as crisps!) I had bought from a vending machine at work.
This little rectangle of cartoon imagery had no indication of what it was other than a picture of our friend Homer on the back and a game that you could play like stone paper scissors, but with some of Homer's favourite foods instead. The packet of chips just had a "the Simpsons" logo brand tie-in on the front and the name of the Tazo as "TV Tazo".
A bit lame I thought, but on looking closer I realised that there where a couple of cuts in the card and a bit of an area that looked like somewhere that you would put your pincered fingers to pull something apart. After a bit of tugging and using my fingernails to break small cardboard joiners that were supposed to give way under that pulling, I finally slid open the flap and saw a picture of Bart underneath with a blank blackboard graphic and a slightly raised area in the middle of the card.
Now being a creature of the internet I went looking for answers to my questions about this card and what it was for - it was a slow day at work, okay?
A quick Google search found the following on the vendor's web site:
"Each TV Tazo pops up for easy display. You can review for your favourite episode and test your memory of the scenes. Firstly, you must push the TV screen up to reveal more fun! Then Rub n’ Reveal one of 50 Classic chalkboard phrases. Over the other side of the TV Tazo, you can play Homer’s Treat game!"
I thought that it would have been nice to have a bit of this info on the package. And it still didn't give me any idea on how to open the card properly without ripping it. It also didn't tell me what the blank blackboard that Bart was in front of was for. It wasn't a scratchy as I originally thought - it was too hard. But I did find the answer after doing the "Rub n' Reveal" as prompted by the web site!
BTW, grammatically, should that be "Rub 'n' Reveal"? But I digress....
Rubbing for a while with a finger, rather than a coin, brings up a heat activated text of one of the "I must not" messages that Bart writes on the board at the start of each TV episode.
Okay, that was as far as I was going to get; so I had my chips and promptly forgot about it all for a couple of weeks.
Until I made another trip to the vending machine at the start of the week. It had been restocked. The package on my favourite chips had been updated with more information on it to promote the wonderful foil covered square inside, but when I opened the TV Tazo this time I had a more pleasant surprise.
It had a little instruction sheet, complete with six illustrations showing you step by step how to open the cards up! Yes. Six illustrations. Anda all were needed to explain the mystery of opening this littel rectangular card.
The question is, why now? After I'd struggled with two cards before that without instructions, why did they now appear with this little slip of paper with intricately detailed instructions.
I think it was a Usability issue - someone didn't test the design on a target market and the vendors must have received a lot of complaints from people trying to work out how to open the bloody things.
I have evidence to back this up.
Just type in "TV Tazo Simpsons" into Ebay.com.au and see how many of these things are being offered "un-popped". Some would say this is a collector thing so that they would be more valuable. Me? I think that they are being sold in disgust because nobody could open the bloody things!
Enjoy!
