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Packaging's usability obstacles take center stage

Universal Design conference to explore how physical limitations impact packaging use, drawing from consumer, packager, vendor, and academic perspectives.

Jim MacLaren will discuss packaging usability from the perspective of a consumer who has physical limitations.
Jim MacLaren will discuss packaging usability from the perspective of a consumer who has physical limitations.

A lot of product companies don’t realize the amount of customers they have who have some sort of disability or who are older. There is a huge potential market of people who need to have an easier way to open and use packaging.”

Those comments come from Jim MacLaren, and he is one of those people. A retired professional athlete, today he is a wheelchair-bound incomplete quadriplegic, which means his spinal cord is injured rather than severed. His physical limitations make many packages a time-consuming ordeal to open—and he laments that some are impossible for him to open without help from another person.

How does MacLaren open many packages? “Thank God I have teeth!” he responds. MacLaren adds that, like most consumers, he makes the majority of his purchase decisions at the store shelf. But for him, the deciding factor in his product purchases often comes down to which product has the easiest packaging for him to operate. MacLaren has become an advocate for consumers whose range of motion, strength, and finger dexterity are reduced by either physical disabilities or age.

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