The effects can be more than inconvenience for the disabled or elderly when they are moved to assisted living facilities due to the fact that they are unable to adhere to medicine regimens or manage meal preparation.

Michigan State University’s School of Packaging has pursued the study of packaging since 1952, and views packaging as an integrated discipline that brings together the social and physical sciences. When considered in this way, packaging is not just a means to protect the product, but has the potential to impact the lives of those interfacing with it.

It is predicted that 20% of the US population will be age 65 or older by 2030 and that by 2050, people over 85 will constitute 5% of the population (Federal Interagency Forum on Aging, 2000).

Besides the effect of the aging population, there are a growing number of people with disabilities. Census 2000 counted 49.7 million people with some type of long-lasting condition or disability in the US. They represented 19.3% of the 257.2 million people who were aged 5 and older in the civilian non-institutionalized population, or nearly one person in five (US Census, 2000).

Designing for the “widest possible audience” by producing designs that are easy to use has already been shown an effective business strategy. Utility in the human environment is something that consumers are willing to pay for, and companies are taking notice. One demonstrable success of the value in improving utility is the recent redesign of the Dutch Boy paint can. Dutch boy began shipping its new “Twist and Pour” container in July of 2002. The “Twist and Pour” moved Dutch Boy from a “wire-handled, metal dinosaur of round cans to a side-handled, spout-pourable, square plastic container” that has garnered rave reviews and “multiple quarters of increase market share” (Arnold, 2003).