January 19, 2011

Usability of the Award Winning Pill Bottle

Although this award winning pill bottle makes the text more readable and one does not need to rotate the bottle to read the instructions, a downside I just observed was that while I was opening the bottle, I was also holding the bottle in the orientation of the text which meant as I got the cap off, pills spilled out from the bottle!  I wonder how many more pills get disposed because they fell on the floor.  How would I have designed the pill bottle differently?

(I recently cut myself so I got these infection prevention pills :) )

back of the napkin crude drawings on a free finger painting app on my mobile device :)
1 idea of many not explored:
Perhaps the medicine bottle should have a bigger base so the label is still oriented correctly; the tip is rounded so the bottle can't be placed upside down and hence keeps the orientation correct.

 

When patient wants to get a pill, s/he will have to explicitly turn it upside down, hence not accidentally spill pills, and catch one in the spherical cap!

The spherical cap is probably not very ergonomic though, especially for older seniors with weaker hand grip, here's another alternative with a sleeker cap which flows with the shape of the main body of the bottle:


Bonus character I drew yesterday when I first downloaded the app and was trying it out ;)

2 comments:

  1. here is slightly higher quality comment

    I heard this was award winning as a result of the vivid color reminding people to use their medication, resulting at 20 pt or higher compliance to dosage.

    If thats true then the container could be even more visible. an undulating lens pattern on the upper surface that looked like a reflector or jewel would concentrate light increasing visiblity even further absent any mnfctring compexity. Also just as liquid filled containers sometimes have a transparent side panel to show amount, a vividly colored vertical could be created at the plastic further increasing visibility.

    They could test this idea to see if it improves compliance as well

    mold text onto the side of the container that says

    Keep going
    almost there
    Great job!

    slightly reminiscent of those graduated progress meters at telethons urging people to participate. this would remind people to complete their entire containerful

    anyway if you created or even like trhis idea consider visiting halfbakery.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cool! Thanks for your comment!

    ReplyDelete