What can I say more than what's already been said and written about the name for Apple's attempt of a Kindle and smartphone all bundled into one tablet.
You would think a large and successful company like Apple, Inc. would have the best market researchers and could have prevented the unstoppable mockery and ridicule surrounding the chosen name. Any 13 and older female could have given Apple's market research department a solid list of the negative connotations the iPad term invokes. At the least, they could have googled the term and seen that it had already been ridiculed in 2007 in a MadTV sketch (I won't post the link but google it if you're really intrigued) . Watching this sketch would have saved them from the everlasting negative press. With so much talk regarding the name "iPad", I am surprised that Apple hasn't issued an explanation of the rationale behind the name to at least defend it's choice. Silence has been their strategy, only time will tell whether it's the right strategy.
As mentioned before, so much has been said already so instead of analyzing it more here are some lessons learned and reminders:
1. First impressions are hard to forget:
Negative first impressive are impossible to forget however taking user feedback and showing them you heard their frustration and dissatisfaction and incorporating it into the next product version will positively impact the user experience going forward and over time lessen the negative first impression and build back some user trust.
2. Choose your labels and product names carefully:
Labels, their understanding and their usage are the easiest way to communicate 'something' to someone. If a label isn't understood or used in a way that fits the users expectations then confusion and other negative emotions will always arise. There's always time for another round of focus groups or user testing to gather feedback because once rolled out to the public, negative connotations, reactions will always hinder the user's experience and will ultimately affect the product adoption process and therefore sales. User testing doesn't require a large budget to be successful as long as you are testing your target user group and you are getting uncontaminated feedback. Contaminated feedback is data gathered from a user that has been contaminated by factors such as desire to please, dishonesty, knowledge level of the product or system, etc. and is therefore unusable.
3. Test early and test often:
Test early: The earlier you test in the design process, the better you can gather and modify the design accordingly before anyone gets too attached to the design and before resources and time is put in to later design stages. Start testing the low-fidelity -- meaning the less detailed -- designs before developing any high-fidelity -- meaning the more detailed -- designs and you will see how early tweaking will solve a lot of usability and user experience problems sooner.
Test often: test as often as needed to validate your user's mental model, meaning their expectations to their goals and tasks) before moving onto more detailed prototypes. Remember anything can be tested at any time in the design process and by 'anything' I mean 'every thing' can potentially be testing if there's any doubt to its validity. This includes internal testing (remember the risk of contaminated data), internal reviews and user testing to gather quantitative (data that can be defined using metrics) and/or qualitative data (data that can be described) related to, but not limited to layout, navigation, labels, information architecture, interaction design, user experience, visual design, feedback, flow, aesthetics, etc.
4. Fill a need:
Does your product fill a need and by need I mean 'a practical need' not a 'I need that because I want to be cool' need? Even though early adopters will think they need, want and buy the latest gadget, if it doesn't fill a practical need the hype and sales will be short-lived because late adopters won't understand the validity or the necessity and the product won't turn into a long-term success.
Update on May 8th, 2010: From the Huffington Post: One woman's iPad review
