A wake-up call to the yoghurt cup manufacturers
The other night, when my student stomach yearned for something special, I ate a yoghurt. After I had finished most of it, I turned and twisted the spoon to scratch the rests out of the corners. Of course, there still was some yoghurt sitting snugly in an edge I couldn’t possibly reach with my spoon. At that moment, it occured to me that it simply isn’t possible to finish a yoghurt completely.
The little edge at the bottom is too narrow to reach with a regular spoon, preventing the last bits of yoghurt from being eaten. The same holds true for the edge at the top.
This probably has good reasons. Maybe it makes the cups cheaper to produce for the manufacturers, maybe it increases stability. But whatever the reasons, the design is wasteful and frustrating for the customer.
The solution is simply to remove the edges and corners:
Voilà, no more places for the last bit of yoghurt to hide. I left a little ridge at the bottom; the cup can stand on it, and it adds stability. I’m not a product designer and I only spent 30 seconds on this, so surely the yoghurt cup manufacturing industry can come up with something even better.
Or, as a last resort, they could always include these spoons with all cups for free.
Do you have any opinions on the notions conveyed in this text? Send me an e-mail and I’ll publish it here. I might censor it though. Because I can. Because I’m German.
© 2008 Julian Stahnke. or go back to the homepage.