You probably have someone at home, or at a friend’s place, who needs to take 4-5 medicines every day.
Have you seen those pill boxes where one can keep all the medicines that have to be taken on that day?
They look like this:
There are certain advantages to this solution. But it has the following limitations:
A. Which pill has to be taken in the afternoon, evening, and night?
B. If you drop a pill, how do you know which one has been dropped? (Most senior citizens hold the pill briefly in their hands before ingesting. If they drop one of these, it becomes an expedition to look for the pill in the overall medicine box.)
C. The refill needs to be done every day/week, depending on the type of pill box you use.
D. Most prescriptions are not by day of week. Most permanent prescriptions like the medicine for BP, thyroid, or diabetes, needs to be taken every day. So, it is simpler to just keep the medicine packets at one place and take them from there. Likewise, in case of an infection, the antibiotic is prescribed for number of days, not in this weekly format.
A different solution
Suppose, instead of looking at the prescription and then picking up the medicine from a pile, you could just pick up the medicine and see what the dosage is?
Some homeopathy medicines come like that – morning dose, evening dose.
A company called NH1 Design has created a simple and practical design to improve the experience of taking medicines.
Let the picture speak for itself:
This is a sticker that can be pasted directly on the medicine container.
What are some questions that the sticker answers automatically?
- When do I need to take this medicine? (morning/noon/night)
- Is it with food / after food?
- For how many days? (the no. of empty blisters on the medicine packet will also tell the user how many days are over)
The company has made these stickers free to download in both English and Hindi. You can download these, print them on sticker paper at home, and use them!
The download can be done from here: Stickers to Monitor Drug Dosage – NH1Design | Branding Consulting and Design
Questions for you
1. Think of user types who are more likely to use the first solution (pill box) and those who are more likely to use the second solution (pill stickers).
2. There is some space labelled “Partner Logo” on the stickers – what information, if any, can you put there if you are downloading the sticker directly from the website?
Write your answers in the comments.
All images from the company’s website.