What a good unboxing feels like, in a box or an app

Tinta sells fountain-pen inks online, and for most of its customers the parcel is the only time they meet the brand. When we started on their labels, the boxes were plain brown, sealed with clear tape, with the invoice folded on top of the bottles.

Around the same time, Stille asked us why people praised their Android app in reviews and then quit during setup. We were looking at the same problem twice: someone opens something new, and the first minute decides whether they carry on.

The first minute has a running order

Watch ten people open a parcel and they do the same four things in the same order. We filmed it at the studio with Tinta’s old boxes and a stopwatch, and an app’s setup follows that order almost exactly.

• Recognise it. Is this my order, or the app I meant to install?

• Get in. Tape, flaps or permissions: how hard is the way in?

• Find the hero. The bottle itself, or the one screen that does the job.

• Know what’s next. A card, a prompt, a reason to come back tomorrow.

Most of them go wrong at step two. Tinta’s customers needed a knife for the tape, and Stille’s new users met nine screens before the app had held back a single notification.

Two fixes that look alike

Both projects ended up with fewer barriers and the good part sooner.

On the doorstep

Tinta’s parcels are now sealed with 50 mm paper tape printed with a stripe of all six inks, and it tears by hand. We kept the brown kraft box, because a fully printed mailer quoted €0.83 more per parcel and the tape did the recognising for €0.06.

Inside, the invoice moved underneath, and a swatch card brushed with the six inks sits on top. People touch it before anything else, and plenty keep it as a bookmark.

A word on tissue paper

We tried tissue and dropped it after the second round of tests. It added one more layer between customers and what they had bought, and nobody asked where it had gone.

On the home screen

Stille’s setup went from nine screens to three questions: which apps can always reach you, when you want your summary, and whether to start now. Every other choice moved to the moment it matters, like the first time a group chat floods in.

Put side by side, the two fixes are close to identical.

Make it look like it belongs

Stille uses Android’s own type and shapes rather than a set of ours. Straight after install it already looks like part of the phone, so there is nothing to learn before the useful part starts.

Tinta’s version of this is the swatch card on top, brushed with the inks customers are paying for. The packaging is a sample of the product, so it never promises more than the bottle delivers.

Open your own product cold

Next time a parcel goes out or a new build goes to testers, hand it to someone who has never seen it and watch without helping. Count the seconds to the hero moment and the times they hesitate.

It usually turns up two fixes, and both tend to be cheap. If your first minute needs work, tell us what you’re launching and we’ll open it cold with you.