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One area i really believe that can use a UI change is BILLS . When was the last time you had a bill you didn’t have to investigate throughly to understand it. Damn.

Whow! Why on earth human beings doesn’t do things like that all the time?

Via wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azithromycin

“[Azithromycin] is also effective against certain sexually transmitted infectious diseases, such as non-gonococcal urethritis and cervicitis.”

LOL !!!

@Sam: You aren’t kidding. Health insurance “bills” too. I’ve gotten so many “explanation of benefits covered” things that look like bills, but aren’t, or maybe they are, I can’t tell. Anything that comes from the insurance company should say “They Charged”, “We Paid”, and “You Owe”. The terms they use are so insular and ludicrous.

This is a pretty neat prescription too: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yandle/497924199/

They WANT the bills to be complicated and impossible to understand at a quick glance. They make money from you not being able to pay or at least forgetting to pay cause you didn’t have time to look through it easily.

Bills have become as complicated as contracts. We need Billing lawyers, a new profession. fuck!

Instead of pills, you can get a shot. That’s the route I took when I was diagnosed with strep throat over the weekend. Wipes out the not completing your meds problem.

I just had Bronchitis and took this anti-biotic and noted the very friendly design as well. It’s especially nice since, when I took it, I was not thinking or seeing things clearly.

Yeah, they gave me the exact same package recently when I had a sore throat that just wouldn’t go away…

I loved the brackets.

All well and good, except when I took them the sore throat came BACK .

It’s always nice to see good design in places you don’t expect.

That’s a lot of packaging for 6 pills.

One thing that struck me as a missing piece of critical and helpful information was a brief description of possibly dangerous allergic reactions symptoms.

@ Sam: on readable bills – amen to that, brother! I get a monthly lease statement from my van pool provider that comes with instructions – “How to read your bill”. You know you’re in trouble when you have to create a separate document on how to decipher another. Sadly it’s a common practice.

Matt:

You have to give Tim credit…that was funny. And I’m 31.

Anyway, kudos to the designer and the company on this one. It is a lot of packaging for 6 pills, but I think it’s well justified. Besides, the pills themselves are made in very large, very expensive machines. I’m sure they’re getting a good rate on packaging.

I blame it on marketing folks. It’s all about getting the brand out there, they say. The discussion of the perfect prescription bottle mentions changing this very early in the article.

To the marketers, I say this: Um, no. It’s about creating a good experience so you don’t piss your users off so badly they don’t come back. Too bad they don’t have any idea what I’m talking about. Their inability to understand means that I continue to have a steady job.

WRT to the azithromycin packaging, there’s one other factor at play – less likelihood for errors/abuse from the pharmacy side, too. Which is easier to dispense and account for, this little self-contained package, or a collection of individual pills?

Better for the consumer all around.

atl gadget grrrl:

I’m a “marketing folk,” and I have a real hard time believing that anyone with any marketing knowledge had anything to do with pill bottles as we generally know them.

I think you should be blaming the “computer engineer folks” that know no better, and who designed the labeling system in the first place. And, of course, one design requirement of that system was “put the logo on there somewhere.”

I love the new “Perfect Prescription Bottle” design. It’s easy to read, the most important information stands out… But notice the logo. It’s smaller, yet it’s MORE noticeable, yes? And best of all for the company…Target is being positively branded by their innovative thinking (or at least their recognition of that thinking)...not because the logo is on the bottle. “Brand” and “logo” are not the same thing.