So we were just given as a gift the most amazing blender I’ve ever seen. It’s called a Blendtec, and these guys are serious not just about blending, but industrial and product design. Seriously, take a look at the product video on their home page.
One of the things that sets this blender apart from others is that there are pre-programmed functions that combine different speeds with different times. In other words, the Blendtec people have decided that the best way to crush ice is to do it at a certain speed for 15 seconds, then a higher speed for 10 seconds, then back to the original speed for another 10 seconds. And this is what the pre-programmed “Crush Ice” setting does. Cool! But how do you describe this exactly to the consumer?
THE PRODUCT MANUAL
Another company would have explained the process in a table of numbers, no doubt. But Blendtec wisely explained it graphically:
SIMPLIFY…
I loved it, but…it still took me a few seconds to figure out exactly what was being communicated. What threw me were the heavy boxes. They were chartjunk. There was so much ink on the page, it was distracting, and since the boxes were different shades, I assumed that the shading carried some meaning. But the shading really doesn’t impart any information. It’s a red herring. I thought it deserved further simplification, and that I could do better. First I tried this…
It was better, I thought. The shadings were gone, and the story was actually a little clearer. But were any shadings necessary? Could more screen ink be removed…?
This was what I settled on…
Is this better? And by that, I mean clearer? Thoughts?
Okay, now it’s time for margharitas!
I agree that its nice to see manufacturers thinking more about how they communicate with their customers!
I also agree that their images are overly ink-heavy and think that your revisions certainly helped rectify this, but I still feel that the images need a second glance. In my mind this is down to the use of the speed vs time axis.
Since in all of the graphs there is the need to include the number of seconds textually, the benefit of having time as the x axis is negated.
My take would have been to use different colors for low-medium-high icons and then indicate the duration in seconds. This would eliminate the need for a graph, which I feel has people looking back and forth for the relationship between the shapes or lines when all they need to see is the number.
Having said that, I think your final depiction is by far the strongest of the three as it shows the relationship between the 3 levels clearly. By using the inked areas, they seem to demonstrate a correlation of area and value – the area of the 27 secs box is way more than twice as big as the 15 secs box – which can serve only to invite confusion.
I think it is great to recognize when people are looking to be more effective and efficient in their communications – so look forward to seeing more examples!
You're right that you totally get thrown looking for the meaning of the area of the boxes. That was one of the big things for me.
Interestingly, there actually is no value applied to the y-axis, and there are more than three low-medium-high settings ("whole juice" has five levels). Perhaps, it's RPM, but whatever the scale, Blendtec is keeping it a secret. That reason and the fact that it's a black and white manual probably means color isn't an option. Another friend pointed out the last example as also showing more of a time-based process, which I also think is missed a bit in the boxes. You know, you might even be able to do it not on an x-y axis at all, but do a version of the last one as a sparkgraph…which might get you away from it feeling like a graph…
Thanks for the thoughts!
You're right that you totally get thrown looking for the meaning of the area of the boxes. That was one of the big things for me.
Interestingly, there actually is no value applied to the y-axis, and there are more than three low-medium-high settings ("whole juice" has five levels). Perhaps, it's RPM, but whatever the scale, Blendtec is keeping it a secret. That reason and the fact that it's a black and white manual probably means color isn't an option. Another friend pointed out the last example as also showing more of a time-based process, which I also think is missed a bit in the boxes. You know, you might even be able to do it not on an x-y axis at all, but do a version of the last one as a sparkgraph…which might get you away from it feeling like a graph…
Thanks for the thoughts!