i is for intuitive

February 6th, 2010 by k8gu Leave a reply »

ipod

Sarah got me an iPod Touch for Christmas, which I am enjoying considerably.  One of the things that struck me about it when I first opened the package was that it came with no instructions.  I marveled briefly that it was so intuitive.

That thought perished from my mind until I was at my mechanic’s shop getting the oil changed in the car on Wednesday.  The shop manager was telling me how he had given his teenage daughter an iPod Touch for Christmas and they couldn’t figure out how to use it at first.

What is the difference between our experiences?  How does Apple get away with not including instructions?  I just found it interesting from a design perspective…

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