After watching about half of the video, I came to the conclusion that the complete
opposite of the intentions on making the packaging better were about to occur
throughout the presentation. My impression of the critique presented was
inordinate. An overbearing amount of content was being crammed onto
something that was actually just fine the way it was. It seems the design
principles that Microsoft intended on emphasizing were space, contrast,
dominance, proportion and maybe balance. However, they continually did the
complete opposite of what should have been done to properly incorporate these
design principles. There was heavy overlapping of text, photos, symbols and
overall it resulted in a grotesque design. Microsoft's basis for self-critique is that
they doing an amazing job of improving the design of the iPod packaging. After
each side is incorrectly altered (by design principles), they make comments
complimenting what they did. I believe feature creep and information overload
can compromise technical writing's goal of communicating clearly and effectively
because the audience will find the result of these faults highly unappealing. No
one is going to want to pick up or even consider looking at a product with
ineffective technical writing doused on it. The phrase "Less is Always More"
definitely applies to this case study. Almost no alterations could have been made
to improve the initial design of the iPod packaging. One thing Microsoft did that
was actually beneficial was the warm color scheme chosen for the side with the
man with headphones on. Just that face of the packaging alone, and leaving
everything else as is would’ve improved the design.