You might read from time to time articles like these “I’ve been trying food X for a whole week! Here are the results!”. Or, “I’ve been using this phone for two weeks. Here’s my feedback!”. Or, “I’ve changed my lifestyle into X for a month, here’s how I feel”. I won’t list any real examples, but they’re plenty to choose from.
The thing is, even if one / two weeks or even one month is not enough, in my opinion, to form a solid opinion.
They say “the first impression counts”. To me, it’s not like that. Sure, I will like a new device the first time I use it, sure, one new button might feel strange at the beginning, sure, something radically new will take some time from my part to accommodate it, sure, design matters, but, at the end of the day, I care more about how I feel about a product long after I just begin using it.
So, if I have a chair, the first months are just getting used to it. It’s not enough to test a smartphone for a week, even for a month. In my opinion, changing lifestyle takes more than a month.
Depending on the product you use, something might require less time (a keyboard; a mouse; a Kindle), something more (a laptop; a smartphone), and something even longer (an office chair; a car; a new house).
The thing is, it’s good to form an initial opinion, but when I look for feedback, I try to get it from people who used the product longer, who adjusted their lifestyle for a bit longer.
I don’t have the same level of requirement for the beginning of using a product as for the later one timeframe.
The “minimum time required time to form a valid opinion” bar is higher, for me.
