Category: Simple Things

Outdoor-style water bottles are extremely popular in the US. This specimen from Eddie Bauer has a feature that is very cool, and quite literally so: it has a built-in cooling element, the likes of which you find in camping coolers.

The cooling element is attached to the bottle’s lid with a bayonet lock. By twisting it versus the lid, you can easily remove it for putting it in the freezer.

The cooling element is the only part that is not dishwasher-safe. Hence, being able to separate it from the lid also allows placing the latter into the dishwasher.

The bottle sports interesting design details beyond the cooling element, though.

Getting a good grip on the bottle

Depending on the difference in temperature between the bottle’s contents and the outside air, condensation may build up on the outside of the bottle. Its surface is very smooth, so that condensation would make it slippery.

Thanks to a rubber band, you can still get a firm grip on the bottle, so it won’t slip through your hand. A rubber ring laid into the outer surface of the lid serves a similar purpose.

The band provides another function, although I’m not sure whether the designer consciously thought about this one.

When you close the bottle, the cooling element is submerged and displaces some of the water. You need to take this into account when you fill the bottle, of course, so it won’t spill over.

Filling the bottle to just above the top edge of the rubber band provides just enough room so as not to overfill the bottle. In other words, the rubber band also serves as a simple “tank full” indicator. The top-most image shows the water level in the closed bottle after filling it this way.

A spout that’s too nifty for its own(er’s) good

The design of the spout is pretty ingenious, too.

It neatly folds away into the bottle’s handle when closed. In that position, it shuts both the main drinking valve as well as the breather hole.

There is one drawback to this specific design, though: when you carry the bottle by the handle, chances are that your finger will touch the spout’s tip, and move it ever so slightly towards the “open” position. As a result, the bottle may leak, even though it appears to be fully closed.

Worse yet, if you take the bottle along into the great outdoors, you will also transfer onto the spout any soil, mud, etc. that you may have on your hands. Next time you take a sip of water, you will ingest whatever’s on the spout’s tip — which is not that pleasant an idea, I’d say.

It is easy prevent the finger from touching the spout by slightly redesigning the shape of the finger loop, as seen here:

This bottle has an additional spout cover, so its opening/closing mechanism isn’t quite as evolved. Both the cover and the little plastic barrier effectively prevent you from inadvertently touching the spout while carrying the bottle.

The usual method for dispensing a pill from a blister pack is to force it through the metal foil on the pack’s underside by pressing on the bulge containing the pill. Here is another design that, instead, requires you to peel off the backing foil.

Instructions are printed on the back of the box. If you miss these, the phrase “Hier Folie abziehen” (“Peel off foil here”) and an arrow pointing out where to start peeling, is printed on each individual segment of the blister pack.

Additionally, the pack has an unusual design detail that guides the user: When you look at the pack’s bulge side, you can see cut-outs along its edge. These make it easier to peel off the metal foil, and they also provide a visual clue that this “device” effectively affords being pulled apart.

If, at first, you do try to push out a pill as you would normally do, you will quickly realize that this won’t work since the foil is too strong. In that case, you will probably either turn the pack around to further investigate the cut-outs, thus discovering the explicit instructions on the back. Or you may intuitively try to peel off the foil via the cut-outs.

This combination of explicit instructions and affordances helps ensure that the user will understand how to properly “use” this blister pack even though this “use” differs from that of most other similar “devices”.

As someone who loves Asian food, I find it interesting to see how restaurateurs make chopsticks and napkins available to their patrons.

At one of my favorite sushi joints, they use simple yet neatly crafted wooden boxes for holding chopsticks and napkins plus a drink specials menu. Both chopstick packs and napkins are stored in the same compartment of that box.

Unfortunately, the restaurant staff always crams so many chopstick packs and napkins into that one compartment that it is impossible to pull out one napkin without dragging along a few more. There is just too much friction between neighboring napkins to allow a single one to slide out easily. Sometimes it is even borderline impossible to pull out a whole pack of napkins without ripping a few of them pieces.

May I please blow this “problem” way out of proportion for the sake of argument real quick? Thanks!

In a way, this chopstick-n-napkin dispenser packing method reminds me of “The Shower Curtain that has its Priorities Wrong” that I have covered previously: it’s about having the wrong priorities and, consequently, aiming for the wrong (design) goals.

If they weren’t over-stuffing the boxes this way, the restaurant staff would have to refill them more often, creating more hassle for them. As a result, however, the first, say, five or six “users” of this dispenser will have a less-than-enjoyable experience when trying to grab a napkin.

As much as I appreciate the excellent service that is provided by the wait staff at this restaurant, I feel that the customer experience should have precedence.

OK, let’s return to planet earth now to solidly re-plant our feet on the “ground of appropriate perspectives” again. But, see, I wanted to present this example to you to demonstrate just how far you can take usability OCD.