title: The twisting force of aged consumers when opening a jar.
abstract: Many people experience difficulty when opening a vacuum-sealed jar. Yet solutions to the problem continue to be tool-based rather than exploring the possibility of innovative changes in product packaging. Improvement depends on gaining knowledge of the capabilities of users, and of using that knowledge as a base for product innovation. To establish such a base we took a sample of 750 subjects and asked them two questions about how they opened jars at home. We then carried out torque measurements using a force transducer shaped like a jam jar. We reached the conclusion that if opening torque was reduced to 2 N m then 97.6% of users between 50 and 94 years of age and 100% of 20-30 year old users would have no difficulty opening a jar.
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial Design, Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. a.i.m.voorbij@io.tudelft.nl
authors.forename: A I M
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Voorbij
authors.forename: L P A
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Steenbekkers
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D006804:Ergonomics / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D018857:Food Packaging / Q000592:standards*; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D019415:Torque; D014618:Vacuum