Find solution
Many failed products are examples of unsought products?

What are some examples of good products failing?

  • Wondering if there are any well built and well designed products that failed due to execution or external factors. What are some examples of good products failing and why?

  • Answer:

    Because products and markets are fundamentally interleaved, the question has no meaning. Part of building a product is building its market. If you alter a product it alters its market. I increasingly think of the "marketing" activities as being part of the product - a key feature of any product is that somebody hears about it. Therefore, in the broad sense of building the "whole product/market", any product that fails was not well built and well designed. In a simple, physical or direct UX sense, it may have been. But to look at just that is to take an overly narrow view as to what a product is, and will mislead people into thinking it matters. Of course, you might want to look at things that had an apparently well polished and executed engineering for inspiration. But don't think that that is important - it is the whole product/market that matters.

Francis Irving at Quora Visit the source

Was this solution helpful to you?

Other answers

The 2007 New England ...

Anon User

There are many, many software products designed to help teach. http://www.educational-software-directory.net/teacher/assessment has links to a bunch that help write or give or grade or analyze tests and assessments.  I don't think any should be called failures, but most have only limited use.  Some may become super products in the future. There's a whole category of products that come on the market, sell well for a while, and then vanish because other products or technologies make them unnecessary.  The Apple Newton PDA had a rather short life.  The whole class of minicomputers, like the DEC VAX had a somewhat longer life.  The typewriter had a much longer life.  And there are products that were pretty good but got blown away by better competitors, like AltaVista, Digital Equipment's early search engine.

Ed Caruthers

Life Savers soda! Remember that stuff? It actually did really well in taste tests, so the product itself was actually pretty good. The problem was with the Life Savers name — the second they put the logo on the bottle, people immediately imagined they were about to drink liquified candy, and were totally turned off by the idea. The lesson? Understand how customers perceive your brand. Not to say you can't push into new markets, but you need to make sure new products or services fit naturally with your reputation and customer expectations. Betamax and Joost are other examples of great products that failed for entirely different reasons. I just wrote an article on famous product failures and the causes, if you'd like to read more: https://www.wrike.com/blog/droneco-comic-ep8-product-development-tips/

Emily Bonnie

Related Q & A:

Just Added Q & A:

Find solution

For every problem there is a solution! Proved by Solucija.

  • Got an issue and looking for advice?

  • Ask Solucija to search every corner of the Web for help.

  • Get workable solutions and helpful tips in a moment.

Just ask Solucija about an issue you face and immediately get a list of ready solutions, answers and tips from other Internet users. We always provide the most suitable and complete answer to your question at the top, along with a few good alternatives below.