At this Friday’s Creative Morning, a few of us from Iridesco stopped by Naked to take in a talk on package design. After the talk, co-organizer Carl Collins posed an interesting question; to paraphrase: People generally have a very positive experience unboxing Apple products. The way a box opens to reveal your purchase, the way it makes the buyer feel like they’ve made a good investment. What would be the parallel to the unboxing of a shiny package when it comes to web apps?
Apple’s package design is generally heralded as one sexy beast. However, I’d argue that the package designers have it easy when it comes to the exteriors of their packages. They can leave off a lot of information because of the pervasiveness of Apple’s brand and because most of their products don’t need to compete with others while boxed. People generally decide to purchase an Apple product not because of the packaging, but because they have held the product, used it, or otherwise bought into the idea of owning one. Many people see the package design of their Apple purchases for the first time after they’ve made up their minds about buying it or have paid for it already. The package design doesn’t need to do much “pre-sale” but it does shine when it introduces the product to the user for the first time. As we can see from various videos around the web, the magic is in the unboxing.
When it comes to web apps, the equivalent of the physical unboxing is the first time user experience. Despite the lack of physical packaging when it comes to web apps, we still need to pay attention to a positive experience in the virtual unboxing. In the web app world, there is no “ah-ha” moment that comes with holding the product in hand, so we focus on the immediate user interaction. Our goals are simple: provide a clear path for user to accomplish their goals in using our service, provide a “kick-ass” moment as soon as possible, minimize confusion, and provide resources to help the user do more once they’ve settled in. While no one is jumping to make videos about their first time experiences at a website, it’s still completely possible to have users fall in love with a web service within minutes of “unboxing it.”
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