Frustration with poorly designed products and services is a daily occurrence for most of us. For example, I recently I tried to enter my phone number on a web form and I received this annoying error message saying it wasn’t formatted properly. The designer hadn’t taken into account (or didn’t care) that I might (like most people) enter my phone number using dashes. No big deal. It took me about 15 seconds to fix the problem and I was on my way. But it left a bad taste in my mouth and really got me thinking about what I view as job #1 here at KOR: to design products that are easy, pleasurable, and convenient to use (unlike that web form). In other words, products designed for the needs of the user, not the designer.

This is our contribution to fighting bottled water waste, because the more people we convert to the “reusable lifestyle,” the less reliant on bottled water our society will be. But competing with bottled water isn’t easy. You certainly can’t beat it for convenience, so we try to focus on features that disposable bottles can’t offer. For example, there’s our Perfect Spout, which matches the curve of your lips for unparalleled drinking comfort. Or take our No-Worry Cap, which opens with a twist of the wrist and stays out of your way while you drink. Human-centered design touches like these aren’t rocket science. The main ingredients are hard work and discipline. That’s a big reason why it took us over a year to bring our new KOR Delta to market. But customers are telling us they love using the Delta, and that’s the ultimate gratification for us – delayed or not.

So we’ll continue to keep our eye on the ball, always keeping the user in mind as we develop new products. And over time, places to fill reusable bottles will proliferate (almost like wi-fi hotspots have over the past ten years). With well designed vessels and lots places to fill them, that’s when the reusable lifestyle really will give bottled water a run for its money.

What do you think? Does a well-designed vessel mean you’re less likely to drink bottled water? What will it take for our society to “tip” so that drinking from a reusable is the norm?