Most shampoo and conditioner bottles have the same shape and feel. For blind and visually impaired consumers, they are difficult to differentiate, especially since these products are needed at times when glasses and other visual aids are not usually used.
"We realized we had a huge opportunity to improve our products and packaging, and encourage other companies to do the same." says Sumaira Latif, a special consultant to consumer packaged goods giant Procter and Gamble on inclusive design, who is herself blind.
To work on this problem, the American multinational P&G has partnered with the British manufacturer of coding, marking and digital printing technologies Domino.
Together, they selected the Herbal Essences bio:renew line of shampoos and conditioners, products that are easily branded toward the bottom of the bottle, where the plastic is thicker, with Domino D-Series CO2 laser engravers.
A tactile code for shampoo and conditioner packaging to be invented
However, since Braille is not widely used in the world (in the United States, less than 10% of blind people can read it), it was necessary to develop another tactile system to be engraved on the packaging.
The teams of the two manufacturers opted for stripes for the shampoos, stripes with an "s" for "shampoo", and two rows of raised circles for the conditioner - conditioner beginning in English ("conditioner") as the word circles.
After successful testing with people with partial or total vision loss, the new bottle design has been rolled out to the entire Herbal Essences organic:renew shampoo and conditioner line in the U.S. market.
"The simple icon approach applied to Herbal Essences bio:renew could be a comprehensive way to enable differentiation." domino points out that it is open to discussions with any other organization that is looking to implement inclusive design on its product packaging.
