User Centered

I'll tell you what I like about Chinese people. They're hanging in there with the chopsticks. You know they've seen the fork. They're staying with the sticks. I don't know how they missed it. Going out all day on the farm with a shovel. Come on. Shovel. Spoon. You're not plowing 50 acres with a couple of pool cues.
-Jerry Seinfeld

Why do we even have the removable toothpaste cap anymore? It's the chopsticks of toothpaste. Surely there can be little argument that it is superior to the flip top toothpaste cap. Does it cost less that the flip top? Is this an economics issue, or are Crest and Colgate determined to clog my drain and litter my bathroom cupboards & floor with stray caps? Perhaps they enjoy the crusted toothpaste rings all over my counter from setting it down there?

The only thing I EVER notice about the toothpaste I buy is if it has a removable cap. Unfortunately, this is after the fact. I don’t care enough about the product to remember which ones have flip and which brands have removable caps (a brand identity problem?). When I’m choosing I want so bad just to pop the box open to peek. I don't want to scare my wife, so I refrain from calling home to ask my wife "quick, go to the bathroom and look at the toothpaste!" -so I gamble and usually win. But sometimes I still end up with the removable cap. How do simple designs like this still manage to get screwed up?

As a side note, it appears someone is thinking about this still

Another side note- I believe the removable cap shown above was designed by IDEO which makes this more interesting. Their goal was to prevent residue in the cap, but what good is that if you can't find it?source