Some Great User-Centric Design
September 20th, 2007 by Andy Didyk
After a semi-long absence, I’ve decided to go a little Seth Godin on you and post a picture from my camera phone.
Sure, as a photographer this image makes me cringe, but my trusty Treo was all I had on hand. While on a client pitch in NYC earlier this week, I spent a few minutes in a lobby with a DHL drop-off box. I was inspired by the simplicity of the answer for a very important question that anyone about to drop a package in the box may have, “Have they picked up packages here yet, or not?”.
The large, block letters in all caps that indicate if a package has been picked up or not are not sexy, or even all that interesting, but they are 100% functional. I think that can be a hallmark of great design. DHL could have gone with a really slick system of lighted buttons, color-coded tabs, or whatever, but instead they chose the direct route. If I can walk up to the drop-off and see immediately that the packages for the day are “NOT PICKED UP”, I can drop my package with confidence and not have a second thought, which I would bet is exactly what the drop-off box designers were going for. Bravo DHL.
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 10:53 am and is filed under branding, consumer products, design, marketing, user experience. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.