Packaging Accessibility

Alaster Yoxall

Increased health combined with medical advances means that the proportion of over 65s in the UK is increasing rapidly. Ageing brings with it a whole host of issues, not least the likelihood of reduced strength, dexterity and cognition. A society in which a significant proportion may struggle with everyday tasks, such as bathing, shopping, banking or even accessing food has become of increasing interest to academics, designers, manufacturers and architects to name just a few. The issue of packaging accessibility, particularly with regards to older people, is one of those specific areas of increasing concern. A significant amount of research work has been ongoing in the UK to understand this issue. The initial thrust of the research was to establish some degree of how less able older people actually were. This followed on from work undertaken by the then Department of Trade and Industry which had used instrumented equipment to measure older people's grip, pinch and twist strength. The novelty of the work by the author was to develop an instrumented jar that was made from actual packaging materials and could be used in a normal way. Further, the device was tested on a significant number of people with currently over 3000 people surveyed. The device used and a typical survey session is shown in Figures 1 and 2.

Typical results from this work can be seen in Figure 3.

The graph shows average torque strength results for males against age (in green) and similarly for females (in blue). This work found that typically women are half as strong as men and that strength (as is to be expected) does indeed decrease with age. This is very apparent for women over the age of 65 with women at 85 being approximately 20% weaker than 65 year old females.

The work outlined above concentrated on jars; however the author has also undertaken work on metal food cans, flexible packaging and squeezable bottles. Due to the nature of this loss of strength, dexterity and cognition by older people, many of these pack formats do pose issues for this particular demographic. In Figure 4, a force sensor is attached to a squeezable bottle and the grip force is measured.

This work showed that as with the jar work described previously, (for example) female participants were weaker than males and older people weaker than younger people. Figure 5 shows grip strength versus age for consumers tested using the thin-film sensors on squeezable bottles. It can be seen that at younger ages women have approximately 2/3rds the grip strength of males and this female grip decreases with age. In this example male grip strength is seen to reduce more significantly with respect to age than females. In this work the authors went on to produce values for 'bottle efficiency' based on the concept of the amount of desired product obtained for a given force. It was seen that certain bottle shapes, materials and foods performed better than others.

This work is part of the 'inclusive design' agenda whereby artefacts can be designed for weaker and less able members of society but in the process are usable and desirable by the majority. Hence data like that shown above can be used to set design limits, say a maximum of 100 N to squeeze contents out of a bottle.

As stated earlier, this issue is being taken more seriously by manufacturers and many pack formats now have 'easy open' features as standard. An example of packaging in the UK that can be seen to promote this strongly is the design of the vitamin supplements container shown in Figure 6.

Of interest is how 'EASY OPEN' on the back of the pack has been combined with 'Our Premium Quality' on the front. Hence this particular brand has combined the idea of improved access and ease of use with quality. Further, in putting the contents in stylish and modern looking packaging, there is no association that this packaging is for any particular age demographic.

There are other examples of manufacturers developing closures that improve access. There are new designs to jars and metal food cans that will soon be launched while a recent development that has been launched is a plastic screw cap with 'wings' that allows improved grip and twist performance on packs such as milk cartons.

Understanding the needs and wants of a society where a large proportion of the populace will be over 65 is a new issue for the world to face. A child born today in the UK has a predicted average life expectancy of over 100. Currently 60% of women in the UK over the age of 75 live alone. What will the future hold for food use and packaging? It is difficult to know. However, understanding and tackling issues related to ageing now will ensure that future elderly consumers will be able to undertake an equal and active part in that world.

Further Reading

Langley, J, Janson, R, Wearn J and Yoxall, A (2005) Inclusive design for containers: improving openability. Packag. Technol. Sci. 18: 285–293.

Yoxall, A, Janson, R, Bradbury, SR, Langley, J and Wearn, J (2006) Openability: producing design limits for consumer packaging. Packag. Technol. Sci. 19: 219–225.

Yoxall, AJ, Luxmoore, JM, Austin, M, Canty, L, Margrave, KJ, Richardson, CJ, Wearn JIC, Howard, C and Lewis, R (2007) Getting to grips with packaging: using ethnography and computer simulation to understand hand–pack interaction. Packag. Technol. Sci. 20: 217–229.

Yoxall, A and Janson, R (2008) Fact or friction: a model for understanding the openability of wide-mouth closures. Packag. Technol. Sci. 21: 137–147.

Yoxall, A, Luxmoore, J, Rowson, J, Langley, J and Janson, R (2008) Size does matter: further studies in hand–pack interaction using computer simulation. Packag. Technol. Sci. 21: 61–72.

Yoxall, A, Langley, J, Janson, R, Lewis, R, Wearn, J, Hayes, SA, and Bix, L (2010) How wide do you want the jar?: the effect on diameter for ease of opening for wide-mouth closures. Packag. Technol. Sci. (in press). DOI: 10.1002/pts.874.

Dr Alaster Yoxall is a Principal Research Fellow in the Art and Design Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK; E-mail: a.yoxall@shu.ac.uk