Thank you for informing me. First I heard of it.
Sometimes even a clearly labeled sign doesn’t help.
Maybe not so universal. United States uses octagons, with two edges vertical and two edges horizontal. What country are you in?
In the UK, STOP signs are octagons - they are the only octagonal road signs. Circular signs with a red border are also mandatory and triangular signs are advisory.
We also use the green running figure.
I’ve seen this Far Side cartoon since I was a wee tyke. I’d say it’s about time I did some research find out how old it is…
Octogon.
I’m just an idiot!
When I was just in Iceland the Walk symbol on the stop lights looked like a troll.
The door push/pull quandary is a big part of Dan Norman’s wonderful The Design of Everyday Things, which he labeled affordance. The book was originally named The Psychology of Everyday Things when released in 1988, which shows that even design experts can get things wrong on the first iteration. It’s still a great read.
I can’t believe I never brought this up here, or maybe I have. Don’t get old, folks! OTC medicine packaging, the kind that you have to peel apart. I have RA and it’s so difficult to open, I just can’t see it being practical for anyone.
The book I mentioned in post #1352 has a subsection titled “Doors of Death” covering this exact thing. And I just put the Dan Norman book you mentioned on hold at my library.
Making something child-proof that’s not also elder-proof is a tall order.
Legally, the former is required, the latter is nice to have. Sucks to be us.
If you go over to the pharmacy counter, they have a can-opener looking tool they use to pry off the outer, childproof caps on the meds they dispense, and they’ll remove them from your OTC bottles too.
A lot of medicines now have a double-sided cap: As purchased, it’s child-safe, but if you manage to get the lid off just once (possibly at the pharmacy counter), you can then turn it over and put it on the other way, in which case it’s just a normal screw-on lid.
ETA: @Slithy_Tove two above.
Which doesn’t help for the problem @Patx2 was complaining about that I was responding to: individual pills in blisters or peel-aparts.
Mea cupla. Let’s call it a general PSA.
That’s when you use a knife. Or the end of a spoon. Go in from the back and just cut the pill out.
See, you’ve inadvertently hit upon the solution. Elders may have strength and dexterity issues, just like children, so a child-proof container that depends on those factors will make it impossible for some elders to open it. But there is a difference with almost zero overlap between children and adults: height, or rather arm-span (which is almost the same thing). Make the bottle 4 feet long, with buttons on each end, and designed like a nuclear launch system where it only opens when you press both buttons at once. They can be individually easy to press; the system depends only on the fact that children can’t physically reach that far.
It will require redesigned medicine cabinets, to be fair.
The little bastards will just double-team it.
Fair. And honestly, even if they don’t actually cooperate, they’ll just use the bottles like lightsabers until they break open on their own.
I have the same issue with blister-packed pharmaceuticals; some are quite difficult to open, which can be frustrating when you really need the med. But prescriptions bottles from the pharmacy often have caps that can be reversed from child-proof to easy-to-open, as below.
