My thesis may make for an interesting read for anyone interested in further exploring dramaturgy in product design, and can be found at:
]]>Its a long but enlightening documentary about a hidden architect of the modern world, highly recommended:
]]>When’s the last time a product manager or company ever had the intellectual integrity and, well, balls, simply to say: “you know what guys, our product just wasn’t good enough.”
Is it that hard to conceive that a cake made with fresh eggs might taste significantly better than one made from powdered eggs? And if that was the case, would the product managers over at good ol’ Betty Crocker have simply admitted that: “We need to figure out a way to make our cake mixes produce a better taking, fresher cake.” Or might they have been tempted to pass of the failure of their crappy-tasting product onto the vagaries of the consumer?
While I love how this story gets one to think about the “dramaturgical” appeal of a product, I think the psychological explanation for what happened with Betty Crocker’s cake mix to be sketchy at best.
– Jeff
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