Imagine you went to a coffee shop, ordered one coffee and got an extra gift with a white package as displayed in the picture above. The staff handed it to you telling something you didn’t pay attention to. Once you arrived at the table, you kept browsing something on your smartphone while taking a sip from the cup. You noticed that white package so you grabbed it, tore the package off, smelled a good scent of coffee, and took a bite on it.
Congrats, you just eat a soap. But no worry, you’re not the only one.
And this is not an only case, the same incident occurred in 2016 when grape-scented soap included in a gift pack for marathon runners. Some participants mistook it as an energy bar and thousands seek for medical help after the race.
Well, I saw many people arguing that it’s users’ fault as they didn’t carefully read the label. But isn’t that also designer’s problem to confirm that they can receive all the information we want to communicate?
So, what these incidents have in common? An overall context that user implied that the gift should be edible? A soap container that imitates the food packaging?
Overall Context
For the overall context, both coffee shop and marathon event support the idea of food gift. It’s good if customers can have a piece of cookie together with their coffee or if runners can have some energy bar after their long run. It makes sense why they all mistaken the soap for other things, taking a baht is totally different situation from their current position.
But if our sponsor or manufacturer really want to give the soap, what should we do to satisfy all stakeholders? The packaging is a final answer.
Packaging
For those two soaps mentioned above, easy-to-tear plastic bag plays an important role on user’s mental model. First, it reminds them of a something edible. Second, it’s too easy to open so they don’t need to pay attention to it.
My suggestion to fix this problem is to change the package to paper soap pack that differentiate from another food packaging. The label also needs to emphasize the product to prevent misunderstanding so I added an extra sticker to draw attention to the user.
Still, this solution is for re-designing the package, not to solve the existing one. Another suggestion as a quick fix for the current product is to add a warning sticker at the tearing area so user needs to pay attention when they’re going to open the package. It isn’t a beautiful solution but at least it can save the production cost and also the user itself.
That’s all for today’s blog! If you have suggestions or better ideas please feel free to share :)
