Info Design in Real Life: Tropicana OJ
Last night I picked up a carton of Tropicana OJ from Albertson’s. Having seen the new packaging before and knowing it hides important information such as, lots of pulp, no pulp, low acid, and low sugar, I know I have to pay extra attention to my product selection. Ever the super-picky consumer I only drink no pulp. I looked over the selection, grabbed one, and off I went.
Once home I poured myself a glass of the vitamin-C rich goodness. No pulp, but something wasn’t quite right. Looking at the carton again, the fine print glared at me: Low acid. Noooo! How did this happen?
The newly designed Tropicana packaging: front view.
No pulp is easy enough to see, but the low acid sneaks in under the radar. Notice they also ditched the oh-so-drinkable orange with the red and white straw stuck into it, the symbol for the most delicious OJ ever for as far back as I can remember.
New Tropican design: top view.
The top of the container that is easily viewable from eye-level (important for high shelves or shorter people) makes it seem like the contents is just free of pulp. You need a bird’s eye view of the container to see that it’s low acid. The new color-coding they put in place is therefore useless, since it is in an inconspicuous place on the carton and is so small a potential buyer can’t see it from an arm’s length away.
The easily recognizable old Tropicana packaging.
The old design was easily recognizable. Very clearly Tropicana, with its original typography that could be spotted from down the grocery aisle. It’s obvious this package contains no pulp, and because they don’t try to hide other information elsewhere, I don’t have to hunt around the fine print checking to ensure it doesn’t say low acid as well.
Though I am mostly concerned with conveying information in a logical, appealing way online, this example shows just how annoying it can be to not provide customers with what they desire, and what they expect. Translated to web design this is often what makes the difference between a great site and a poor one. As the world becomes more reliant on the internet, professionally designed websites are no longer an option, but a standard.
