The shower curtain & rings sense of designing products

Last weekend we moved to a new apartment and they didn’t have shower curtain in the bathroom. So yesterday night we went out to buy shower curtain and shower curtain rings. We found a neat shower curtain and a set of rings (2 separate products). We bought them and got home. I unpacked the rings and curtain and went to bathroom to fix them, and you know what – the shower curtain had 10 holes, and there are exactly 10 rings in the curtain rings pack.

Staring at me the probably the most fundamental and yet most important lesson for all of us trying to sell something. These are 2 separate products, manufactured in 2 different places in China (probably) and yet somehow they both just work together, like there is some imaginary shower-curtain-hole-rings standard from ISCSO.

Next time when you are making something that others are going to use, spend sometime thinking whether your product (or website, service etc.) will work with rest of the things the customer may use without excessive customization. Deviating from standards is good, companies like Apple can pull it successfully. But, making your products / ideas / stuff work with other things is much more important and fruitful.

FlickR photo from massdistraction

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