Settling the cover design for a new personal care stick

The question

If a new cover damaged the stick as it came off, the product could look faulty before anyone had used it, and a first impression is hard to win back.

The packaging design team had several new covers to choose between. It wanted to know which ones people could remove most easily, which they liked, which did the least harm to the stick, and how each compared with the cover already on shelf.

Our approach

Opening a pack is a habit over in seconds, so we watched and filmed every opening before asking anyone what they thought.

The current cover went through the same test as each new design, giving every new design a fair point of comparison, and the women didn’t know what the research was for, so they opened each pack as they would at home.

From how users themselves judged damage, we built a spectrum, so every stick was assessed on the same scale.

What the team came away with

The design team kept a film of every cover coming off, a photograph of each stick afterward, and our read of both against the damage spectrum.

Every design, new or current, could be compared on the same footing, so the choice of cover could start from what people did with the pack as well as what they said about it, with the film there for anyone who wanted to see a particular opening again.

The damage spectrum came from users’ own judgments, so the team had a way to assess any later design against the standard the people buying the stick would apply.