Design Guru Critiques Apple Retail Store

xdfgf writes "Paco Underhill, CEO of Envirosell, gives an overview, and explains aspects, of the floor plan of the SoHo Apple store. Quote from the article: 'If success lurks in details like those, it explains why Apple CEO Steve Jobs spends half a day each week with a 20-member design team, hashing out tweak after tweak in each of his 53 retail stores. In one session, the group agonized over three types of lighting to get Jobs's iMacs to shine just as they do in glossy ads.'"

Comments

Design "Consultants"

[adso]

As an architect, design consultants make my blood boil. While Mr Underhill may have spent hours in the local mall, noticing that people wander counterclockwise, a list of rules to follow does not a good design make.

His suggestions- glass staircase scares off the oldsters, an "In Stock Now!" sign so people could tell it was a store, and putting more tchochkes at the checkout to get those impulsive spenders- all reek of items that would work well in a supermarket. I'm sure this guy makes millions getting retail corporate sheep to follow his dogmatic design rules (and they are dogmatic- I would hardly call some behavioral observations "science", no matter what the title of his book is.) but if he could step back and realize the kind of people Apple is marketing towards (at the very minimum, a group of people who appreciate good design) then he would know that those people who aren't afraid of a Unix-based operating system sure as hell aren't going to be afraid of a glass staircase. These people will be annoyed by cheap signs littered throughout a space trying to grab your attention (the architectural equivalent of a blinking banner ad) and the few coffee cups at the checkout counter trying to squeeze an extra four dollars out of you while you are waiting in line to spend two thousand.

This is the kind of genius that thinks they should put some kind of pricing special into their ads (Order now and get the Yao Ming/Mini Me combination Powerbook/bobblehead free! Operators are standing by!)

Re:Design "Consultants"

[Twirlip of the Mists]

...if he could step back and realize the kind of people Apple is marketing towards (at the very minimum, a group of people who appreciate good design) then he would know that those people who aren't afraid of a Unix-based operating system sure as hell aren't going to be afraid of a glass staircase.

Two thirds of Apple's core market is made up of the very young and the very old. Most of Apple's target customers have never even heard the word "UNIX." Generally speaking, Apple isn't marketing toward people who appreciate good design on a conscious level. They're marketing toward regular people. Regular people appreciate good design, but don't dwell on it. This tactic has the beneficial side-effect of appealing to fetishists, too.

...and the few coffee cups at the checkout counter...

Actually, Apple's impulse items are iPods and the like, not coffee cups. It works, too. I was at an Apple store last fall to buy a copy of Microsoft Office for a new laptop, and when I got to the register I saw a stack of iPods sitting there. I decided, right there on the spot, to get one for myself and one for my girlfriend.

Re:Design "Consultants"

[dbrutus]

Don't be an ass. Some people have kids with strollers who would like a clear sign for that elevator too, not to mention that old people's money spends just as well as hip, cool 20 year olds.

I can understand some of the critique but what's the problem with adjusting shelves so you don't have to stoop to see what's there? And for impulse buy items while you're on line? I'd suggest applecare contracts (which come in a very nice box), .mac signup kits, and perhaps a booklet listing every mac shop, teaching center, and mac consultant within a hundred miles of the store.

There's no need for checkout tchochkes to be about bubble gum and the National Enquirer or for them to only be 4 bucks.

Re:Design "Consultants"

[fobside]

Do people really go through the mall counterclockwise? I'm thinking about myself and I go clockwise. Damn, that means I'll never be in fashion, because I'll get to the crap when everyone is at the good stuff!

Apple Stores make their computers look like their in a museum. I think that's an interesting idea. No other store I know does it this way.

Re:Design "Consultants"

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Do people really go through the mall counterclockwise?

I think people in the United States at least generally circulate to the right, or counterclockwise. The reason has to do with traffic. In the US, we drive on the right side of the road, so oncoming traffic is on our left. So when we walk through a store, we walk on the right side, so that the displays and whatnot are on our left.

I qualify this by saying "in the United States" because I noticed once in Australia that it's just the opposite. I had to go to a mall in Sydney one time to pick up a new battery for my laptop, and I noticed that traffic generally circulated clockwise there. I haven't paid attention in any of the other Commonwealth countries, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were the same.

Of course, it might have just been the Coriolis affect. ;-)

Re:Design "Consultants"

[adso]

Don't be an ass. Some people have kids with strollers who would like a clear sign for that elevator too, not to mention that old people's money spends just as well as hip, cool 20 year olds.

I just find it hard to believe that anyone with strollers or a disabilty would not know that in any two-level store, the elevator is almost always in the back (with the rest of the mechanical)

Although he is generally positive about the store, what infuriates me is that Paco Underhill (Wasn't he Bilbo's neighbor in the Shire?) is applying concepts that seem to be more suited to a big-box retail store than to the Apple Store. I see Apple's retail strategy to be similar to the "branding environments" of stores like Nike Town, where you get to see and touch the products, but not necessarily buy them. Apple could easily stack the place to the rafters with product, but sheer sales volume is not what they are going for inside the store.

Re:Design "Consultants"

[RandomCoil]

I was very happy to read the post of someone who reacted the same way I did to the suggestions. Almost every suggestion attacked the sense of class the current design evokes, with the possible exception of the tilted shelves and the better elevator signage. My personal "favorite" suggestions were:

1) Addition of "in stock now" signs. Nothing says class like advertising the fact you actually have what you're selling. (although perhaps "not in stock" signs would be useful for the 17" PowerBook)

2) The concession stand. Because you want your entire store to wreak like a Starbucks and have the floor covered with spill stains.

3) Add point of sale items near the register. Like Wal/K-mart. Because that's the image you want people to have.

Clearly the author of the article is the one responsible for putting DVD players (!!!!) in my grocery store.

RC

Re:Design "Consultants"

[eglamkowski]

Don't know what you're talking about - my home PC is over four years old and still chugging along just fine. I've added some stuff to it, but have not had a single thing break on it.

In fact, in terms of personal ownership, I have only ever owned three computers and I've been at it for over 20 years. And one of those three was a C-64... The other two were PCs, one of which I gave to my sister when I wanted to upgrade my game playing capability. So, I'd say PCs can work for year after year after year too.

Granted, in college I didn't own my own PC since I had access to X boxes and various Sparc stations and who needs a PC under those conditions... :)~

Re:Design "Consultants"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Next time you go to a theme park, get there at opening and head clockwise from the entrance. No lines.

It's usually not that simple, but people in theme parks do move in a predictable way. If you know when to go to each ride, you'll spend much less time waiting in line.

I've seen books that describe how to do this for Disneyland (i.e. when to go on which rides). I read one of them, and it worked pretty well - I waited in line about 5 minutes for one ride, and when I went by later in the day, it looked like there was a wait of at least 60-90 minutes. This was an extreme case (for some reason very few people choose to go on this ride in the morning). Still, on most other rides you can save 15-30 minutes if you know when to get there.

For other theme parks, try asking an employee when the best time to go on a ride is. People who work at restuarants/games/stores/etc. near a ride will often know when its peak times occur (customer service doesn't usually have information like this).

It breaks the rules yet works?

[tuxedobob]

Strange how he picked an atypcial store to analyze. Most Apple stores are one floor. In any case, one hopes there's more to his analysis than just the 7 points he mentions, especially since the Apple Store apparently fails five of them. (But a concession stand in an Apple Store? What, instead of free Evian?) Nevertheless, Apple Stores are, even by the author's own account, a success, so you have to wonder if perhaps the rules are flawed. It may be precisely because Apple Stores are so different that people are intruiged by almost everything in the store.

As a side note, I have to wonder how many females traverse the glass staircase in skirts or dresses.
...Probably none, actually.

Re:It breaks the rules yet works?

[47PHA60]

I think that the "rules" are weird anyway and won't work for the Apple stores. Apple sells abot 15 products, and all of them are unique in the product line. I think what they were after was a sort of vertical integration. Make the best looking computers. Make sure the graphics shine (hence the uncomfortable term "lickable" used to describe the interface). Then, make sure the products look as good in the store as they do in the ads.

Most importantly: CompUSA and Microcenter are terrifying, chaotic messes that don't really have what you want in all the clutter, so I think the Apple stores were designed to be the exact opposite of that.

The minimalist approach freaked me a little when I first went in, but then I realized that they were saying: you don't need to buy a sounds card, some software, an MP3 player, a cable. Just buy a Mac and an Ipod and you have everything you need.
Also, from working in grocery stores for many years, it is obvious to me that this designer is using rules from that field (even if he does not think so). How could an Ipod be an impulse buy? You may get convinced to buy one, but I don't think it can be equated with a candy bar.

Apple's unique ability to do what they do

[Ry R.]

It occurred to me the other day that Apple is steering us towards the shiny (brushed) metal future that countless science fiction books, movies, TV shows, movies and conceptual art has foretold.

The clean look that surrounded factious HAL's world in 2001: A Space Odyssey is becoming Apple's reality.

The stores are just an extension of this; they have managed to create, as others have pointed out, an environment that is conducive to buying because it doesn't seem designed for selling. Yes, it shows off the products, but it doesn't show them off the obvious here's-the-damn-product way that car showrooms do, and it doesn't layer products on shelves like Wal-Mart (and most everyone else). It just sets the products up the ideal space you would want to use them, a sterile (yet warm and comfortable) studio somewhere overlooking the flying-car future of New York.

It reminds me of Gerhard Richter, the fussed-over German painter, who lives in such an environment: homely sterility.

But what Apple does is pretty much impossible for any else to replicate: They are able to create such an environment because they not only dictate what is sold (Wal-Mart does this) but because they make (i e design) most everything they sell. Additionally they set the most-always-followed president for the design of products that accompany what they make: Their human interface design stretches beyond the software that runs on their OS, it encompasses most every product and most every product box that they sell.

Because of this kinetic link not just between what they make and what they sell but what other people make for them to sell, Apple is uniquely able to create the Apple Store, something no Windows PC maker could because of the mesh that makes up not just their software or hardware world, but any front-end retail attempts.

As an ex-Apple employee...

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Look, I love Apple products--I really do. But Jobs has always suffered from missing the forest for the trees, and this latest example is just another clear indication of that. "Making sure the light was just right so they glowed just like they should?" Meanwhile: the processor speed is becoming more and more of a factor, third party developers are only barely on board, and when they are their support is lackluster, Apple's strategy for penetration into vertical markets and turnkey solutions is represented by some powerpoint slides, and they haven't given raises to the employees for two years. The attitude still is: if you don't get it, it's not worthwhile trying to convert you.

Apple needs to keep its eye on the ball, and while the design details make for an impressive presentation, you're at least partially selling to a market that knows how to evaluate on the basis of third party benchmarks to price ratio. While design aspects are, I think, part of what makes owning an Apple a special experience, I think the resource of time is being squandered on those concerns and left the meat of the consideration go begging.

The core of the problem: to buy a Mac, you spend more to purchase a machine with less speed, and will work with fewer third parties. All the nice lighting in the world won't fix that, and so I wish they spent that 4 hours a week thinking about improving those things instead. However, in the long run, that's undoubtedly harder--and it requires that Apple folks work with partners, and they are often too self-righteous to do so.

Re:As an ex-Apple employee...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Processor speed is becoming more and more of a factor?" By processor speed, I assume you must mean how many gigahertz it has. I suppose that's why Intel's just introduced the 1.6 GHz Centrino chips, which they claim is significantly faster than 2.5 GHz P4s. On the contrary, it's becoming more and more evident that processor speed is becoming one of the less important factors for consumer. The fact that the PC industry is still essentially suffering during a time when processors have made incredible gains in speed should be proof enough that speed isn't enough of a hook to get consumers to buy new machines. The stores are doing great for Apple. They're well-lighted, well organized, and the environment is very friendly. The Apple Stores are also the only computer retail store I've ever visited with female sales clerks. By that, I mean, women who are actually technically non-clueless and who do more than just stand around ringing up the register. The fact is, the Apple stores are already ringing up - what, some 20% of sales for Apple. We're talking a mere 50 or so stores that are on track to bring in close to half a million dollars of revenue each year. Clearly, people love the stores. How you can associate the lack of 2+ Ghz G4s with the stores being a wasted effort is beyond me.

Why do people hang to the right?

[weave]

Why do people go to the right? Is this a result of which side people drive on? I've noticed in shopping malls too, people walk down the right side of the aisle, but when I was in UK, I didn't see any real pattern, people just kinda walked wherever. (Not a scientific study of course).

Anyone from countries like Japan, Australia, or UK care to offer any insight? Do you walk to the left when entering a shop?

How I envision MOST sales from the retail stores

[amichalo]

Other than a USB hub or iPod, I envision most major purchases starting this way:

PC/Mac user sees switch/other ad on TV

Said user goes to store.apple.com or calls 1-800-APPLE to get more info

User realizes how much better their life coul dbe if they owned one of these products

User also sees on-line or is told over phone their is an Apple store X miles away

User hops into car and goes to store where they THEN see the product for the first time

User say to themselves "WOW a 17" Powerbook or 23" Cinema Display is AWESOME" and then proceeds to purchase and take home said product on the spot.

This is how it went down for one of my friends before they 'switched' - just needed to touch it and feel it before slamming down the Visa.