Aveeno lotion bottle
At first glance, this lotion bottle seems easy to use. On first use, one simply twists the pump mechanism in the direction of the arrow corresponding to "open" and pumps for lotion. This pump bottle design is very common, and when it comes to pumping lotion, its learnability, efficiency, and safety levels are all fairly high. For pumping lotion:
- there is a natural mapping from the force pressed down on the pump to an amount of lotion that comes out
- there is immediate feedback from the bottle which is the outputted lotion
- there are constraints on the bottle such as a firm shell to prevent one from squeezing it or trying other methods to output lotion
In other words, the way to output lotion from this bottle is very visible and discoverable; one does not have to spend any effort thinking about how to get lotion out of the bottle.
What if one would like to travel with the bottle and close the pump to prevent accidental outputted lotion? The method to close the bottle is not immediately visible. In previous and similar designs, one simply twists the pump in the opposite direction of "open" to close the pump. In fact, it is common to have "close" with a corresponding arrow written on the top of the pump.
However in this case there are no visible cues on how to close the bottle, inhibiting learnability and efficiency.
In fact, to close the pump, one must press down on the pump while simultaneously twisting it in the opposite direction of "open" until there is satisfactory resistance in the twisting motion.
What is compromised by this design?
- Learnability due to the lack of visibility and no natural mapping from pressing and twisting to closing the pump
- Efficiency due to the time needed to experiment with the pump in order to discover how to close the bottle
- Safety due to the large amount of lotion outputted while pressing down to close the bottle
Possible Solutions
- One solution I propose is simply to revert to the previous design of the bottle in which closing is achieved by simply twisting the pump in the opposite direction of "open". The top of the pump then has a "close" label with a corresponding arrow. This solution is both clear and intuitive. It's also very common for pump bottles.
- Another possible solution is to have an attached cap that can be removed from the neck of the pump, which inhibits the ability to press down on the pump. This solution eliminates the need for reading "close" as there is a direct conceptual map from placing the cap around the neck of the pump and preventing lotion from being outputted.
Both of these solutions are easy to learn and efficient.