Deodorant usability
Disclosure: I am a user of Axe deodorant products, with no specific scent preference. Trust me, this is not because I believe (or once believed) that scantily clad women would surround me. This happens to be the default choice for someone with sufficient inertia and fear of switching costs.
(If you expect a few pictures or videos of Axe ads here, shame on you, this is a decent blog! You can buy Android if you want those. Just kidding — Google ‘Axe Ads’ and you are good).
Now, Axe recently changed the design of their container, which I welcomed (at first). So, this post is to explain why I welcomed, and also the ‘at first’ part. After a couple of crackpot theories (1 ,2 — which I am indeed proud of), I felt the need to post something more this-worldly.
The old design was as follows:
When it was closed
You could do a ‘rotate’ operation to open it.
When it was open
The problem with it
When it was open, you wouldn’t know which side the hole was at. Particularly for someone as myopic as I am, I would end up holding the wrong end to my underarms and end up having the deo on my palm.
New design — When it is closed
Nice and cute, and you do the same “rotate” operation to open it.
New design — When it is open
Instead of the previous flat design, it now pops out a nozzle of sorts. Neat, right?
Why do I still have a problem (or only I liked it only ‘at first’)
The whole is on the other side — The one that popped out wasn’t a nozzle at all, it was a lever to press, that’s all. The hole is on the other side.
What this meant was, my brain actively considers it to be a nozzle and instructs my hand to carefully place the nozzle closer to my underarm and press. When I do this, there is deo again on my palm. Instead, my brain should instruct my hand to consider what appears to be a nozzle as a button, keep the other side close to my underarm and press it carefully.
I think I will learn. But wonder if there was any usability done for this design, and I am an outlier here.
