by Nick
Monday, August 20, 2007 1:08 PM
Joel on Software is lamenting about Office 2007, and even complains about the box it comes in:
I bought a retail copy of Office 2007 today (I'm loading up the new laptop I got for the world tour, which is a Thinkpad X61s), and I must be a complete spaz, but I simply could not figure out how to open the bizarre new packaging.
It's a hard plastic case, sealed in two different places by plastic stickies. It represents a complete failure of industrial design; an utter F in the school of Donald Norman's Design of Everyday Things. To be technical about it, it has no true affordances and actually has some false affordances: visual clues as to how to open it that turn out to be wrong.
My version of Office 2007 came as a download, so I never had the same experience. I can say that I had a similar experience with Apple's iPod Nano, when I bought one for my mom for Mother's Day. I was going to open up the clear plastic case that it came in, so I could load her music on it for her. It took me about 5 minutes to open it, and I almost cracked the plastic because I was trying to do it the wrong way. It was not intuitive at all.
Your very first impression of anything is the packaging. It's not a good sign when that impression is bad. Don't get me wrong... the case was beautiful, and exactly the look and type of design I'd expect from Apple. But looks should never override easy of use. I think Apple forgets that sometimes.