Usability testing and sticky spoons
Posted April 13th, 2010 by David Hamill
When you look through your own website, you do so with complete knowledge of how it works. So it’s often difficult to spot problems with it. Through usability testing you can uncover issues with your designs that you may never have realised on your own.
In this post I’m going to point out an issue in the design of a yogurt pot that the designers may not have noticed. When I walk you through the problem, it may seem obvious.
Mmmm… yogurt
The product image below is a tasty yogurt-based snack called Rumbers Oat Cluster. I often buy it with my lunch when I’m in town.
The pot is quite cutely designed (if a little over-packaged). It’s made up of plain yogurt and a dried fruit, seed and nut crumble.
Before eating the snack you need to mix it all together. So you start by separating the two pots. You peel the foil lid from the pot containing the yogurt (pictured above). Then you remove the film from the pot with the crumble (pictured below) and pour the yogurt over the crumble.
After pouring the yogurt over the crumble it’s normal to mix the two together. Well that’s what I do anyway. In order to do so you need a spoon. Luckily Rumblers Oat Clusters come with a spoon. Unfortunately that spoon disappeared underneath the crumble when you turned the bowl over. And that crumble is now underneath a layer of yoghurt.
The spoon disappeared when you turned the pot over, so it’s easy to forget about it. In a step-by-step process it’s unusual to think about Step 5 until you’ve finished Step 4. Unless you can see it, you don’t really think about the spoon until it becomes relevant (See Jakob Neilsen’s Usability Heuristics – Recognition not recall).
Good designers need usability testing
If the designers of this product walked through the process of using it they might do so without problem. This is because they designed it and know more about the product than the user.
When they walk through the process, they’d just remove the spoon after removing the film from the pot. It’s unlikely that they’d forget about the spoon because it was them who decided where the spoon went. They need to test the design to find such issues.
No amount of design talent will allow you to spot all of the issues with your designs. This is why good designers understand the benefit of usability testing.
What would you do?
It’s easy to pontificate about these things from the safety of my usability blog. But in reality it may not actually be worth fixing the issue.
Why not leave a comment telling me what you’d do and why. Would you leave it as it is or could you redesign it to make it better?
Remember to consider:
- The likely financial impact of the problem (I’m still buying them)
- The cost of production (they simply drop the spoon in before adding the crumble)
- The importance of the spoon’s visibility at purchase
I’ll try to respond to each comment. You can add links in your comment to anything that supports your argument. Just paste the URL into the comment if you wish to do so.
36 Responses to “Usability testing and sticky spoons”
April 13th, 2010 at 11:51 am
Well I guess the easiest and cheapest solution would be to put the spoon in first, then the crumble. That way you don’t see it when it is in its “normal” position, but when you turn it over and open the bowl, the spoon is sitting right there on top.
Of course “cheap” solution still means changing sequence in production which can turn out to be quite impossible.
They could also just leave the spoon out of the bowl and as a last step in the production chain glue it to the side of the pot. I have seen that in ice-cream quite a lot.
April 13th, 2010 at 11:59 am
Hi Kit. They do put the spoon in first just now (it is then turned upside down). If they put it in after the crumble you might not be able to see the spoon when you were thinking of buying it. Gluing the spoon means that some would probably become detached in transit. I’m sure these are both workable solutions. As far as I can see, each option seems to have a down side. This is often the case when designing websites. You often have to forego one thing to prioritise another.
Interesting points, thanks for commenting.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
This may seem like a shameless plug but this is exactly the sort of thing i’m trying to talk about over at:
http://everydayinteractions.posterous.com/
I snap poorly designed interactions and try to relate them to websites.
This would fit perfectly on there. Great stuff!
April 13th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Well, I would think you take the crumble, and pour it over the yoghurt, revealing the spoon on the bottom of the cup, wich then lands on top of everything.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Hi Prullenbak. So would you go back and redesign the packaging to achieve this? Sounds expensive.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
It would be great if they could pop the spoon between both compartments so that it comes out the second you split them apart.
Alternatively you could have a smaller (flat) spoon under a piece of cardboard of the crumble. This is what they do for ben and jerry’s ice cream. All you have to do is remove the first piece of cardboard to reveal spoon and then peel away plastic of the crumble.
The second option involved a bit more packaging so might not be best choice.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Hi,
No, I, as a ‘user’ would pour the crumble over the yoghurt, not the other way around. Then the design is alright.
You can see the spoon, because the crumble cup is see-through. So you could say that, in a way , the manufacturer of the package is saying to you: “look inside, there’s a spoon here!, don’t pour the yoghurt over the crumbles!”
April 13th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Look at the photos of the product. The yogurt pot has been designed to be poured over the crumble. There is a small tab to tear in order to open the yogurt. This is a clear instruction to pour the yogurt rather than the crumble. You can’t see it but there isn’t actually room to fit the crumble and the yogurt inside the yogurt side and you’d need to attack the foil with a knife in order to get it all off.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
I wonder whether they really didn’t do any usability testing.
As you suggest the designers might have walked through the process and had no problems.
They might have tried it on real (or realistic) users only after the packaging was designed.
I suppose the spoon needs to be visible, which might count against Lorraine’s suggestions. Also, the first solution might entail the spoon flying across the street unless it were secured to the packaging, which complicates the manufacturing and assembly. The second option also requires more packaging, as Lorraine says.
Maybe the spoon could be inserted vertically against the side of the pot next to the label, so the tip of the handle were poking out from the top of the crumble. However, that would require rather more care in the assembly process than merely dropping it into the pot before the crumble. It might also require a redesign of the spoon and pot.
I suspect the designers realised the problem too late and said, “bummer, never thought of that”. They evaluated the alternatives and then thought, “sod it, it’s too difficult and expensive to change now. The users will get sticky fingers the first time, but since it’s a wonderful product they’ll come back and they’ll know better next time. It’s really not worth fixing”.
That’s all pure guesswork, and maybe it reflects my software development background, ie usability problems are found too late and then dismissed with a glib rationalisation that they’re “cosmetic” or the users will learn to love the mess anyway.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Hi James. I think you might be right. I’ve had a sticky spoon at least half a dozen times though. So they didn’t account for my inability to learn.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
But you keep buying, so are they bothered?
(Have i posted this twice, or did I lose the first one? I really should have been paying attention. I suppose I could blame the usability, but this time it really might be my own fault).
April 13th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
No, exactly, I’m not. Actually it gives me an excuse to bore those around me about how they’ve got the usability wrong. So for me it’s a feature!
April 13th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
@david
Oh, yeah, now I see…I thought you just didn;t open the yoghurt cup further then you (thought you) needed to. But the drawing even tells you to pour the yoghurt.
Then, theres 2 things they can do:
1. Put the crumbles in first, then put the spoon in. So when you open the crumble cup to pour in the yoghurt, you see the spoon lying on top. Shouldn’t be too hard or expensive?
OR 2. Make the yoghurt cup in a way that you can open it completely, and a little bigger, so people can use it the way I described earlier. A little bit more expensive, but it would work, I guess.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
1. But then you don’t see that there’s a spoon when you see it on the shelf (which is arguably more important than avoiding a sticky spoon)
2. You’d be as well redesigning it completely in that case.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
By the way, sometimes (other brand) the crumble and the yoghurt are 2 cups that are attached to each other side by side. You’re supposed to flip (You just ‘fold’ the center) the crumbles over, so they fall into the yoghurt. That would be the best solution. (but it’s expensive, since it’s a completely different design)
And even then… it took my mom and dad a couple of years to figure out you didn’t have to seperate the cups before flipping it over
April 13th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
we typed that almost simultaneously?
about solution nr 1 :
They only have to print “SPOON INSIDE!” on the cup. And leave some of the other (useless) text off
April 13th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Hi David,
I’ve done exactly the same thing! And don’t take so kindly to sticky spoons or digging through my crumble to dig out a spoon. How terribly uncouth.
I reckon I’d just put a big old picture of a plastic spoon on the label – digging into some tasty yoghurt – maybe with “includes spoon”. Maybe even with “free” in there. People love free. Bung the spoon under (or over from a build perspective) the crumble so it’s there when you open it.
And if you didn’t realise it included a spoon you get a wonderful surprise. Smashing!
Mind you… the psychology behind someone actually seeing the spoon probably encourages purchase if they’re in the mindset of buying an all in one snack for the road, which presumably is the target market.
I’m now feeling I’m over-thinking this.
Also, I found the pouring thing fiddly and was annoyed that I couldn’t get all the yoghurt out onto my crumble. I’m stingy that way.
I bet real world product designers are envious of us digital folk having things like analytics.
32% of users ended their journey with a sticky spoon. 26% were slightly miffed at incomplete yogurt dispensing.
I propose a complete redesign
April 13th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Hi Andy. yeah I was the same with the yogurt wastage.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Interesting. In Denmark, we have small yoghurt cups like this, but they are designed with the large part for the yoghurt and the smaller part for the crumble or muesli. You always pour the crumble into the yoghurt – and the folded spoon in a plastic sleeve is always visible. It might be somewhat covered in bits of crumble, but that is due to the contents settling during transit. It does seem as if they do a better job of controlling my behavior through design, reducing the danger of a bad dining-on-the-run experience.
And I assume that is what you are getting at – the good experience. I will definitely avoid certain types of fast food based on a messiness factor if I cannot afford the bother of major cleanup.
Then I move beyond the designer’s responsibility – they do play a role, but my situation then dictates whether I can cope with the design: do I take this home to eat or can I handle it in the train station?
Getting back to websites – can I cope with the design here and now (e.g. on an iPhone) or do it bookmark it for later reading on a better platform (or to be utterly forgotten)? How motivated am I to jump through hoops – and which hoops?
I love this type of comparison. Your posts nudge the ol’ brain cells, as usual. Thanks!
April 13th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
I’ve seen usability tests where the series of tasks assesses each step of a process really well, but they don’t assess whether the overall order of the tasks (the process flow) is right. Perhaps these designers did do usability testing, but with an over prescriptive test plan. Here’s how their tests might have gone:
Task 1: Please open the yogurt – success.
Task 2: Please retrieve the spoon – success.
Task 3: Please mix the stuff together – success.
No usability problems! Let’s make yogurt.
But really, if they’d been less prescriptive about the order people do the tasks, they might have found out that people naturally do task 3 before task 2 and get sticky fingers.
OK here’s my stab at this: how about everything stays where it is, but you fix the spoon inside the lid instead of it just sitting there.
Add just a couple of pinches in the plastic lid design so it holds on to the spoon. Or some kinda food-safe gummy glue.
Hungry Dave comes along, pours in his muesli… where’s my spoon? Oh it’s conveniently stuck into / wedged into these new pinches in the old plastic lid. Munch munch.
April 14th, 2010 at 8:22 am
Hi Charlie. Yeah it’s like the “Search for Robin Hood” task that I saw someone use once. Only one thing is going to happen. They’re going to look for the search box that you just told them exists and type ‘Robin Hood’ into it. This doesn’t tell you if you’ve got any problems with your search, it just tells you if your participant can read. When you create a ‘retrieve the spoon’ task you’re reminding them that the spoon is there.
April 14th, 2010 at 8:31 am
Charlie – that’s interesting. I was thinking of something very similar to the prescriptive testing you describe when I wrote a blog about the relationship between usability and security. http://clarotesting.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/usability-and-security/
Traditional functional software testing can be very one-dimensional, presuming that a task will be completed in a certain order, without consideration of what real users will do. That has obvious implications for usability. It’s interesting to see that the same failing also sometimes applies to usability testing.
April 14th, 2010 at 10:09 am
I would always put the crumble on top because I prefer a crunch : ). Anyway, you have learned the system so you are now okay. Learnability is fine in design.
The spoon could be externalised, or wrapped but those options add their own problems.
April 14th, 2010 at 10:10 am
Hi Ritchie. Learnability is fine but if you read through the comments you’ll see that myself and another person have done this numerous times. You shouldn’t need to learn how to use a yogurt.
April 14th, 2010 at 10:29 am
I’d sandwich the spoon between the two pots…
As for the usability testing, before they even get to DESIGNING their product, let alone TESTING their product or variants of it, they need to do real world observation first of how people open and use yogurt pots, what they focus on, what they look at, what they ignore etc. From this they would learn that few people would follow any instructions and need a solution that is fundamentally self-evident..
April 14th, 2010 at 11:14 am
You *have* learned though.
Also, maybe they did consider other solutions; solutions which proved fiddly or added to production costs.
April 14th, 2010 at 11:22 am
Strictly speaking I’ve learned but it hasn’t become the automatic way that I assemble my snack. Learning in this respect is useless unless it changes something.
April 14th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
I agree with you it isn’t perfect, and I liked your candid post.
Sometimes though, perfection doesn’t ship.
They themselves may agree with you but had to toil over the options and costs.
April 14th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
I think that you should not need to learn how to use a yoghurt pot. I’m old-skool that way. I also reckon it’s a pretty common error. One that should have been sorted.
As Charlie pointed out earlier, it’s most probably the victim of over-prescriptive testing (if indeed it was tested).
I don’t think it requires a solution that is expensive. Often these things are sorted with just language/labelling or a lovely picture to set expectations.
I’m thinking of branching out into yoghurt pot design. Sounds fun.
April 14th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
I suggest affixing the spoon with a little blob of weak glue (perhaps starch-based/edible) to the top surface of the foil on the bottom (yoghurt) compartment, and then simply ensure that the blurb on the packaging makes it clear that a spoon is included. That would solve the spoon problem.
However, there’s also the bigger problem of the pouring-yoghurt-over-cereal being the wrong way round, and to solve that I’d make the yoghurt pot larger and the cereal bit smaller.
The only caveat I can think of (other than packaging redesign) is that having a larger air gap in the yoghurt party might conceivably increase the rate of spoilage, but surely it’s normal to fill such voids (as in the cereal compartment) with inert gas anyway?
April 26th, 2010 at 9:39 am
I thoroughly enjoyed this article and even more, the commentary. I love this kind of thinking. Interestingly, I’m a product designer-turned UX/visual designer and I see a couple of ways to resolve this.
1. Yogurt = big pot, Crumble = small pot.
I agree with the folks above that the crumble compartment should be smaller than the yogurt. It creates the proper information hierarchy so-to-speak. Larger pot is the “main area”, smaller pot, “secondary area”. This is done at McDonald’s with their yogurt parfait, at least here in the US, though the amount of crumbly part is IMO much to little. I like that crunch.
2. Make spoon out of divider material.
To resolve the “find the spoon” exercise, it might be worthwhile to create a tear-out or pop-out spoon from the divider material itself. I know currently it’s tin foil or aluminum, quite thin and too flimsy. But perhaps there’s another equally food-safe, air-tight material that could be used to contain the crumble, that would be thin and strong enough to create a make-shift spoon from. I can see this acting something like those tins where you pull the tab and it creates and opening (this is usually found on drinkables but I’ve seen on container for nuts too). What more if it could be biodegradable. They are making disposable spoons and other utensils out of potatoes now – taterware. It’s quite strong.
3. Turn the entire problem on it’s head. Put the yogurt, crumble and spoon in concentric circular package or concentric in some way so that one plastic column is placed inside the outer pot.
Done by packing company:
1. Drop spoon in center, small cylinder.
2. Fill with crumble.
3. Fill outer cylinder with yogurt. Seal all accordingly.
When ready to eat, open top and pull out center cylinder. Voila, all items in place. Stir to mix.
*There would need to be some way of course to seal the inside so that there’s no seepage between the bottom inside, but I think this could be achieved. Alternative could also be to have the crumble fully contained in a pot that nests inside the yogurt pot, but keeping it tall would allow for a proper length spoon to sit inside vertically.
June 30th, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Good post Dave and I like your usage of the Yoghurt example to highlight an overall point.
October 20th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
to prevent a sticky spoon, i suggest using a sticky spoon… allow me to explain (i didn’t read all the posts so this may have already been mentioned.)
since the spoon is already placed in first, and in view (which is helpful for sales) why not glue it there with a non-toxic or edible glue (like the glue they use on the paper around a ice cream cone)
this would help to insure that the spoon STAYs in view for purchasing. and that the spoon doesn’t fall into the yogurt. the user after completing “step 4″ would then see the spoon and un-stick it and enjoy.
January 9th, 2011 at 6:06 am
I would poor the crumble on top of the yogurt and then mix and the spoon wouldn’t end up under the yogurt. It is simply an issue with the instructions!
January 9th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Hi Nichole, thanks for the comment. It’s interesting you say that. You see people often don’t read the instructions even if they say they do. This is why it’s not good enough to ask people what they do. You need to observe them instead.
Take your comment for example. I asked at the bottom of this post what readers would do if they were in the designer’s situation. You’ve answered this by telling me what you’d do in the situtation of the consumer. So you weren’t really reading the instructions were you?
Now you’re asking us to believe that despite not reading the instructions for this debate that you’d read the instructions for a yogurt pot. I’m sorry to say it Nichole but I don’t believe you would.
February 1st, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Yep. Karen has summarised how I’d approach this. PLus, you waste less yogurt by it being left in the pot you pour from. The pots are sized according to their importance and the spoon is still visible loose on the flat top which has a cap on it to keep the spoon in.
The noise (it can move about) and visibility of the spoon help people know it’s there even if they miss ‘spoon’ writing on the label you could use.
People can control the exact mix they want and get rid of one pot immediately if they pour all the crumble in so making it more transportable.
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