The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Interaction Design
Image: MacBook Pro Unpacking photoset by *nathan, via unboxing.com.
Unboxing is a threshold we cross with most products, though it’s rarely celebrated enough.
I found this Flickr photo set from a website which does know how to celebrate the experience, unboxing.com. There’s something quite pornographic about the way the polystyrene is photographed. And tantalising about the way the plug and power cord are shot just before they’re plugged in.
Apple is a company who does generally know how to enrich the experience of unboxing. Tiffany, the jewellers, also pay attention to unboxing.
Unboxing is an important moment of our engagement with the product – our first moment of engagement – it should be great experience! Yet usually all we get for pulling off the shrinkwrap is liability under a lengthy and incomprehensible end-user license agreeement.
So let’s try to think of a product and a way to make unboxing a key part of it.
I choose shoes (this idea came about after we’d been chatting with someone who worked in shoes for a while). Trainers, actually. Sports shoes. You call them sneakers here?
Unboxing a new pair of trainers – sneakers – is usually unsatisfying. Pulling the paper wadded into the shoe toes out is hard, yet if it’s not there you’re reminded that other people have put their sweaty feet in this shoe before you. Often you need to put the laces in yourself. Tedious!
The small intervention I suggest is inspired by the little piece of transparent plastic you get over the screens of calculators, iPods and mobile phones to prevent them being scratched in public. You notice that people often keep them on for a while, “hey, I’ve got a new phone.” That’s the bit of plastic.