Scientific Study Says 50% of Product Returns are Caused by Complexity
One of the ideas that have been floating around in my head lately is that customer experience is becoming a primary differentiator in the desirability of a product. And now science says that’s right!
According to an article in Reuters, a Dutch scientist found that half of all product returns are because customers can’t figure out how to use them. The study also revealed some other interesting information, such as the fact that consumers in the US will struggle for around 20 minutes before giving up on a product. The study also found that most of the problems occured at the beginning of the design process in product definition.
Maybe it’s time to start charging more for our services!
3 Comments
Alas, this makes sense only in the world of physical products.
In the world of virtual products, this isn’t so true. Well, for starters, it’s often hard to return software.
But, more importantly, complexity actually SELLS more software. This isn’t good/right, but seems to be true.
The main problem is that those that buy software tend not to be those that use the software. If a business is making a 7-figure software purchase, the decision is usually made by a group of men wearing ties in an office who will never actually have to touch said software.
Alas, this seems to be a known factor and as I evaluate more and more ‘enterprise level’ software the more I realise that the trend to add more crap to every orifice in the UI is not slowing down at all.
Perhaps another related issue is that it seems as if software users have been conditioned to EXPECT the software to be complex. They actually feel that a complex/hard-to-use piece of software is actually better as it ‘must be more powerful because that other one was just too simple to use’.
It’s an odd industry.
Yes, it does only make sense for physical products. But part of what’s going on right now is that physical products are beginning to extend the experience beyond the traditional computer. There’s the continually cited example of iTunes and the iPod. There are Treos coming out of people’s ears. Microsoft just launched their Origami “ultraportable PC” today.
Many of these things (including the Origami, I think) come with all the software you need to what the device was designed to do, making it an integral part of the device. So if I buy a Treo or an Origami and the software that comes with it sucks, what am I going to do? I unfortunately lack hacking skills, so I’ll give up and take it back.
In a more specialized area, music production, there are products beginning to be developed that give physical controls to music software (not new) that automatically configure themselves based on what the user is looking at (that’s the new part). Look at Novation’s REMote SL and Native Instruments’ KORE system as examples. Controllers have been around for a while, but they’ve always required users to, at the very least, switch between configurations manually, if not forcing them to do much of the configuration themselves. With these new devices, configuration happens without effort. If you want to edit a synth sound, you bring up that synth program and the controller will switch its configuration. The KORE thing will even let you navigate around the various synths, effects, etc that are open in your current session without using the mouse at all.
Sorry about the long-windedness… my point is just that the line between what a “virtual product” is and what a “real product” is is beginning to become seriously blurred.
Fred:
I completely agree.
My comment really should have made a distinction between ‘products sold to users’ and ‘products sold to managers of users’.
Of course, ‘users’ could then be subdivided into two categories:
- those that assume software has to be complex to be of any value
- those that treat software like any product and expect it to work, and be easy to use.
;o)