UX of an Orange

Kaartik Malhotra | Product Design at Spinny

Image credit — Shutterstock.com

Orange!? Really?
Yes, you read it correctly. I’m talking about an orange. As a product designer, we tend to limit ourselves just to the realm of the two-dimensional world and fail to appreciate the UX of nature.

Orange, a seemingly simple fruit, is perfectly designed, both visually, and from a UX point of view. I’ll explain

1. The name itself is explanatory, so cognitive connection between name and function is easy to establish.
2. It is covered with a protective layer of peel and can be re-used in drinks and cocktails, thereby covering all possible use-cases and edge cases, and is scalable.
3. The slices are of perfect size, ie., while snacking, the user doesn’t have to go out of their comfort zone to fit the slice in their mouth and at the same time follow the social etiquette of not opening your mouth wide open while eating
4. Each slice has a seed that can be sown to get new oranges, therefore it has a high level of evolutionary design standard
5. It’s extremely easy to carry and doesn’t spoil easily, therefore is robust by design.
6. Operating this fruit is so simple, that a toddler can peel it and eat it in a single go.

Seeing these pointers make me realise, that nature is the best UX designer and good design is already around us, we just need a keen eye for it!