I find it interesting how often I encounter things - everyday things - that are badly designed. Often it appears like the designer has no experience of actually using whatever they have designed. A good example is my local Co-Op. The cramped, awkward packing area is clearly designed by someone who has heard about shopping, but only does theirs online. I am wondering if the same guy came up with the wheeled baskets in Lidl, as they are totally impossible to use. They take up as much room around the store a smaller trolleys, but require one to bend down to ground level to unload. For me, that is quite hard; for some older shoppers it is impossible.
Recently I have had similar thoughts about a pharmaceutical product that I have been prescribed. It is nothing exciting - just antihistamine tablets. The problem is that the pills are ridiculously small - maybe 3mm across. This makes them hard to get out of the blister pack, easy to drop and difficult to swallow. I have to carefully locate them well back on my tongue and push them down to make them stick, then quickly flush them down with water. Even then, I am not always 100% certain that they’ve gone; maybe they are lurking in my mouth somewhere.
I have seen similarly diminutive pills used to deliver drugs that are targeted specifically at elderly people, who I am sure have all the same problems that I do. Why can they not add a quantity of inert filler material to make the pills just a bit bigger? They would be a lot less frustrating to use and safer too.
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