[Sigia-l] If microsoft had designed the Ipod packaging

[Larry Schwerzler]

>
>Are you intimating that designers/IAs/marketers/etc at Microsoft are not
>following best practices? Are you actually saying that they don't wear white
>coats and conduct user tests? Are you suggesting that a few design gurus
>have run amok at Microsoft and produced these without the benefit of
>tested-and-true design-by-committee? Don't you think end users have the
>option of finding any kind of info they may need on those boxes and isn't
>that what UCD is all about? Don't you think having just one kind of box the
>way Apple does is unnecessarily restricting user options? Cheap Microsoft
>bashing from predictable sources, I'd say.
>
>----
>Ziya
>
>  
>
MS and Apple use very different strategies in their marketing and 
packaging, each caters to a specific group.  Apple shoots for  the style 
conscious crowd which is very in keeping with what has made the i pod so 
successful. MS tends to focus on features and improvements in their 
packaging and hence ends up with a less "artistic" and often more 
cluttered box space.

I think saying that one is correct where the other is not is making an 
assumption about design (user centered or not) that there is a "correct" 
way.

That being said it has been a long time since MS had a product that was 
as instantly a market dominator as the i pod has. Is that a result of 
the marketing/packaging? In my opinion not entirely, but apple seems to 
have found a niche that works well for their product.

Larry