Embracing Great Design -- in a Pill Bottle?
Who would think that the common pill bottle could be redesigned to be not necessarily a thing of beauty but an object of great, even life saving, usefulness.
You know what an ordinary pill container looks like. Now take a look at the new version, which encompasses dozens of design and content changes, courtesy of Target's ClearRx System.
Designer Deborah Adler and her team worked to make the bottle easy to read, much easier to understand and considerably user friendlier for older patients (a free magnifying glass is available that snugs into the bottle).
But what really amazes user design expert Peter Merholz is the process behind the design that went into getting approval from Walgreen's on the radical new concept. Writing on Harvard Business Publishing Merholz takes away four lessons for designers:
- Prototype early.
- Prepare for a slog.
- Align efforts with brand values.
- Customer experience is made of people.
Says Merholz:
"For something like ClearRx, there were dozens (if not hundreds) of decision points and 'stage gates' along the way, and at any one of those, this initiative could have died or been severely compromised. I'm in awe that something this good was able to be released."
What radical designs most wowed you? For me, it was an Apple product, but not the one you expect. And, no, not the Macintosh, either. Back in 1984, a few months after the Mac's debut, out came the Apple //c, a sleek, slanted, unexpectedly white computer that looked unlike anything else available from IBM, Amiga or other early PC makers. It became my first computer. Check it out.
For a design change that didn't go so well, at least with users, read my recent post Tropicana's Trouble: Why Loyal Users Hate Change.