I'm a Boomer, Hear Me Roar

As somebody who gets older every day, I've become increasingly critical of design as it impacts consumer comfort.

And as a member of the baby boomer set, my ability to tear open packages, read labels, twist caps, maneuver scissors and adroitly punch numbers onto a dial pad has diminished considerably. But boomers are still your most consistent, reliably acquisitive market sector. Have we ever walked by your store without coming in and maxing out our VISA?

So, please heed our cries. And start by telling me exactly who's the genius who decided that tiny little blue numbers and letters on a dark gray background – or purple on black or black and gray or any combination that isn't black and white – was terrific design for those incredibly shrinking cell phones? (Also, by the way, TV remote-control clickers.) Not bad enough that you have to dial with your thumb, and hold it far enough away and into some available natural light to see what you're doing. But you need night-vision goggles to separate the prismatic colors so you can read the pad or see who just called when your phone jingled through “Fleur de Lisle” and you couldn't pick up because you had no idea in what pocket or pile or bag it was in. (OK, that's our fault.)

And who thought shrinkwrap packaging was a great idea? There are probably security benefits to wrapping hard plastic tightly around a new pair of scissors, giving you no fingerhold of any kind to pry that plastic open – even though you'd need the fingers of Thor to accomplish it. The other solution would be to cut it open with scissors, but owning scissors with the necessary cutting strength would probably put you on Homeland Security's suspects list. And anyway, how can you cut open the package if the only pair of scissors you own is inside that package?

I suppose it's a cliché by now to discuss the opening of a music CD. Not only is the cellophane stubborn and electromagnetically sticks to everything. But once you have that off, you still have to peel that piece of adhesive off the plastic to liberate the disc and, finally, listen to your music. I've spent many fun-filled hours trying to peel that tape off, first, the package and, second, my fingers.

Ellen DeGeneres has done the requisite hilarious riff on how CD containers can't be opened by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – but a lightbulb, the most fragile of all the things we purchase on any regular basis, comes in a flimsy no-ply cardboard container.

Another cliché, by now, is to attack the twist-off caps on medicine bottles. “Child-proof,” except that the fingers of a child have a better chance of pressing, twisting, holding and pulling than ours do. (Forget the aluminum seal you have to cut through, the cotton you have to pull out – often strand by strand – and that little freshness cylinder that always comes tumbling out instead of the pill you need to take.)

Recently, I had surgery on my hand. (Oh, that's why this rant!) And so, of course, I've had to take medicine, and also deal with all the other everyday issues that were challenging enough when I had functioning opposable thumbs.

Special medicine bottles designed for aging, hand-challenged boomers. You'd think, wouldn't you? But then, you'd be depending on some of the same people who design your cell phones.