So here I am, making (bake off) croissants. And thankfully, the packaging designer put some distinctive icons on the packaging (left picture) to help me to prepare them properly. So far so good, but here's the thing: the icons are a nice idea, but they don't contain the right information.
The icon on the left indicates I should put the croissants in the oven. I kind of figured that one out. Then there's the icon in the middle saying that the croissants should be in the oven for 4 minutes. Ok, that's helpful. And then there's the icon on the right to teach me that there's four croissants in the package. Seems a bit redundant considering the packaging is transparent and I can clearly see the four croissants lined up for me. And all those redundant icons would not be that much of an annoyance if they'd include that one other piece of information you really need to prepare the croissants: to what temperature should the oven be set? That's not in the icons. That's in the nearly illegible text somewhere else on the packaging (right picture). What a waste. Here's a packaging designer actually thinking about visualizing some of the information on the packaging, but then uses two out three icons for irrelevant information and leaves out one essential piece of information.

Blah-blah pasta
Here's another one. Pasta packaging. Similar to the previous example, the only information that you actually need - how long do I need to boil the pasta, and how much do I need per person - is hidden in the microscopic text on the right (click picture to enlarge). The largest font and the most prominent place on the packaging (upper left) is reserved for absolutely irrelevant marketing blahblah about the origins of pasta (which happens to be organic). Slightly interesting at best. But not for everyone, and definitely not information that you would want to read almost every time you use the pasta. Why not put the cooking time and portion size up there in a big font, in a separate text box, in a prominent place? Is it ignorance or intentional? Are they trying to lure us into reading that carefully crafted, copy-written message about only the best natural ingredients being used? The whole package is aimed at the customer, not at the user. Understandable from a marketing manager's perspective, nonsense from where I am standing.

Amazon's frustration-free packaging
For those of you who are truly annoyed by packaging stupidity Amazon recently opened a web-shop that only features products with frustration-free packaging (a term they actually trade-marked). Nice gesture, but I'm afraid that most of the times you don't select your LEGO, books or CDs based on the kind of packaging they come in. But that doesn't mean a blank cheque for manufacturers to keep producing packaging that requires a PhD in mechanical engineering and a torch to open them. In what seems to be an attempt to push the industry towards making more user friendly packaging Amazon is also inviting people to upload pictures and movies of their own most frustratingly packaged products, leading to what they call 'wrap rage'. Seems like Amazon is really trying to push manufacturers not to frustrate their customers. I'm sending them my croissants.

See Also
More uselog posts featuring packaging:
> The 'usable' milk carton
> Why don't microwaves have power-labels?
> The user-friendly paint bucket

UPDATE
Changed the title from 'consumer-centered...' to the more appropriate 'customer-centered versus user-centered packaging', thanks to a comment from Erik.