Do you ever find yourself trying to enlarge the words on a printed product by pushing apart your thumb and pointer finger?
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I do it way more than I care to admit. The pointless action often makes me giggle. Clearly, I have become accustomed to technological advances that enable me to enlarge pictures and writing on my electronic devices.
However, this is never going to work on printed items such as medicine bottles and the like. And that brings me to another question, which triggers more frustration than humour.
Why is it that pharmaceutical producers use extremely small, often light print on their product packaging?
I try to abide by the common medical advise "read directions before use", but that often is not possible. That is, of course, unless I have a magnifying glass nearby.
I don't want to generalise and say all medicine bottles are like this, but I am yet to find one that isn't.
Regardless of whether it be a vitamin, antibiotic, a ventolin pump or any other medication, the directions are near impossible to read, and forget about trying to find the expiry date in many cases. Surely this information is essential for safety. So why is it made so difficult?
I wear glasses for long-sightedness, get my eyes checked regularly and am proud to say I have 20-20 distance vision - but my arms are not a metre long so my quality, long distance vision isn't helpful in this situation.
Unfortunately, even with my glasses on, the print on a medicine bottle is still often too small and too faint for me to read.
Of late I have been taking photos of the directions so I can then expand the print on my phone - but should I have to do that?
I understand that there is not a lot of room to provide details on a bottle, but I would expect directions to be easily visible to all users. I feel the expiry date is equally important.
As far as I am concerned, this is a situation that clearly needs revision by the marketing gurus for medical products.
In the meantime, that magnifying glass I bought for my husband a few years ago - as a joke - now has real merit.
My vision is firmly focused on a solution to this challenge.
