Complexity causes 50% of product returns
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Half of all malfunctioning products returned to stores by consumers are in full working order, but customers can’t figure out how to operate the devices, a scientist said on Monday.
Product complaints and returns are often caused by poor design, but companies frequently dismiss them as “nuisance calls,” Elke den Ouden found in her thesis at the Technical University of Eindhoven in the south of the Netherlands.
A wave of versatile electronics gadgets has flooded the market in recent years, ranging from MP3 players and home cinema sets to media centers and wireless audio systems, but consumers still find it hard to install and use them, she found.
The average consumer in the United States will struggle for 20 minutes to get a device working, before giving up, the study found.
Product developers, brought in to witness the struggles of average consumers, were astounded by the havoc they created.
She also gave new products to a group of managers from consumer electronics company Philips, asking them to use them over the weekend. The managers returned frustrated because they could not get the devices to work properly.
Most of the flaws found their origin in the first phase of the design process: product definition, Den Ouden found.
ioiosotwig >> I like to call it the “toaster rule”. Insert bread here, push down lever! THE END
I like that! However, every toaster I’ve owned was not consistent enough for me… either over or under-browned.
As I ate my burnt toast, I’ve contemplated that there are more than few variables in toasting. but especially type of bread and starting temperature. Still, it seems like a fixable problem.
OK, let’s get the engineers involved with the toaster! Of course we need an intelligent interface, remote control, and of course, a red LED that acts as a night light when it’s off, or better than red, one of those super bright blue LED’s Oops, I almost forgot, it needs to be wireless and have it’s own IP address!
How come, I cant return VISTA? Why does MSFT get away with a no returns policy in spite of selling an eminently unusable product?