We recently reported in Picture Business magazine that almost half of the CE/imaging products returned in this country are brought back to the retailer in prefect working order. A recent study done by Elke den Ouden, a PhD candidate at the Technical University of Eindhoven, Netherlands claims the reason for these alarming return rates for products in perfect working order is this: The 20 Minute Rule – meaning the average American consumer is spending just 20 minutes with CE/imaging devices trying to figure out how they work. After that, it’s back to the store. While den Ouden has been defending her thesis for the better part of 2006 at various speaking engagements, at least one major CE manufacturer is on board with her claims that CE companies need to “simplify their products.”
Philips Electronics recently introduced its “Sense and Simplicity” program to make its products more customer-friendly. Philips own in-house research found that many devices had functions that consumers had difficulty installing or did not use, while others simply didn’t communicate with each other. The company admitted that one of their wireless music centers, which controls audio speakers all over a house from a single location, was so hard to set up that even the company’s own employees found it a challenge.
Within the last year, Philips has released or is developing a number of products that reflect its new approach. Their seven-inch-diagonal digital photo display frame stores 50 to 80 photos and shows them in a simple slideshow format. It downloads photos directly from any digital camera or any brand of memory card or stick, or from any computer, making it easy to use. The picture quality is better than a typical video screen, and all the product does is display digital images.
Due out later this year is “Momento,” a glass ball that fits in the palm of a hand and “wakes up” to play its store of video clips when picked up. The user simply shakes the ball to see the next video, a la the wildly popular Magic 8-ball of years gone by. “Momento” has no buttons or dials and no wires to connect, receiving its images wirelessly from any Bluetooth-enabled device.
Praise has regularly been heaped upon Apple’s iPod, a model of clean design and ease of use, and the same can be said for many of today’s compact point-and-shoot digital cameras. We feel fairly confident in saying that the imaging industry should not assume that the public follows their every move and understands every stage of the industry’s digital developments. The pace of imaging technology has moved so quickly that a good deal of the intended audience remains baffled and intimidated by this techno-onslaught.
