Not often !! Think back to all the products that you have bought in your life - for how many of them has the buying/first usage experience been so good that you have remembered it. In my case - exactly two - iPod and iMac. In fact, I was so impressed with my iMac packaging, I took pictures while I was opening the package (see below). Setting up the machine was so much fun that I did not want it to end.

Horrible first use experience permeates both hardware products and also computer software. I think before any new products are released to the market, the executive management and product managers should watch some real people (not designers, not developers) try to use their product the first time. That should stop claims every marketing department loves to make - easy to use, easy to deploy (my foot !!).

Steve Johnson of Pragmatic Marketing in his blog post On buying and using describes his horrendous first user experience with a JBL portable player for his iPod. Such examples are everywhere - so why do great companies like Apple get it right - they take the time and give it the right amount of priority during design. They are not necessarily smarter than the rest of us, they just know that their products are going to be used by people who are very different from them and hence take the time to think how best to design the product to make it easy.

Steve points out how product packaging gets shoe horned into a one size fits all approach for all sales channels because one of the channels exhibits high incidence of product theft. Companies should start paying more attention to how customers buy if they want to make differentiation especially in product areas where all products are starting to look like. After all, good looks sell. Otherwise, you will have people like Steve and me openly writing about our horrendous experiences with products on our blogs for the rest of the world to read. Welcome to the new world of bad PR !!

Over the last week, I cannot tell you how embarassed I have been to say that I am a New England Patriots fan? I have loved the Patriots since I moved to Boston in 1996. Them going to the Super Bowl my very first year here in Boston helped of course (though they did not win it all that year). Then came the 2001, 2003 and 2005 seasons where they won it all. The last couple of years were heart breaking, but there was something about this team that made it everyone’s envy. The attention to every detail, the team camaraderie and the strong work ethic of  coach Bill Belichick who was called a genius by everyone. Then all of this fell right apart this last week with what has now become famous “videogate”, “spygate”, “cameragate” ….

All the respect I had for coach Belichick went right out of the window when I first heard about the spying episode. I was mad not just because he cheated but because I never understood why he had to do it. Here was a team that was retooled with some of the best offensive weapons and favored heavily to win it all again this year. Why would the so called genius, such a great leader who could bring out the best out of his players, falter by making such a stupid decision to stoop so low. I even thought of not watching last night’s game against the Chargers, but then it is difficult to keep me away from a football game.

What transpired last night completely surprised me . The team rallied around their coach in what I consider to be one of the best Patriots game I have watched in the last 11 years. Both the offense and defense had an air around them that they had something to prove. They brought their best game all for their wounded coach and leader. The San Diego Chargers unfortunately did not stand a chance right from the word go. At the end of the game, they even gave Belichick the game ball to express their support.

This is to me is what great teams are made of. I still do not approve of Belichick’s unethical ways and I don’t think I ever will. But as a product manager, I am very impressed how the team rallied around their wounded leader to pick him up when he was down. Maybe that is what true teams are made of. It would have been very easy for the team to throw stones at their own glasshouse, but no - what they did last night is probably what sets the Patriots apart from the rest of the league.

After all, it is what it is. They moved on and continued doing what they do best - winning football games.

This morning, while walking through Terminal 3 of the San Francisco airport to get to my gate, I happened to notice the design museum display near the moving walkways. The museum is titled “From Prototype to Product: Thirty-three Projects from the Bay Area Design Community“.Behind each display, were quotes of some famous people.

One of them caught my eye - it said ““The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak”. After getting home, I googled it to find that it is a quote by Hans Hofmann. The reason I find this quote very interesting is because it captures what good product design is all about. Designing a good product involves spending more time deciding what features NOT to include than deciding what features to include. I would bet that designers of iPod had all the pressures to add a zillion features to it - an AM/FM radio station, ability to add/edit/delete songs etc. But they did not - because adding all of these features would have destroyed the elegant design. The end product does not do everything, but what it does it does very elegantly. To this day, I would be willing to pay more for a remote control that would do the five things I want to do - play, stop, forward, rewind, power on/off, instead of the other 500 features it has making it impossible to find these features. The office phone is another example. Try doing a conference call.

To do this right, you need to understand who your target user is and then saying no to features that are not needed by target users. You cannot listen to sales, they will tell you that you need everything under the sun. You cannot listen to just your existing customers, they will ask you for more and more features. What you need to do is get out and talk to real people who want to use your product - especially people who have not yet bought your product. Observe them struggle using the current products (your products or competitors) and then figure out what you can do to simplify their lives. It is not easy, but good things never come easy.

I have been in radio silence for the past 3 weeks with no blog posts. After coming back from a month long vacation in India ( a welcome break), I started my new gig as a Product Manager at RSA, security division of EMC on August 27th. Since then, it has been heads down work trying to understand the new domain, terminology, product strategy, existing products etc. There has not been much time to blog, given the time constraints between work and home. As I am getting more used to the new workplace, I expect to pick up blogging !!