Rethink the Food Label
A friend of my husband’s (they’re both UI designers) posted a link to this cool food label design contest held jointly by UC Berkeley’s Journalism News21, Design Matters, and GOOD. Fruits and vegetables could use this kind of good press!
The winning design is a huge improvement – though the thumbs up wouldn’t translate well (“up yours” in some places).
Imagine – if we were to redesign with diabetes in mind (hint, hint, all you designers out there - next Diabetes Mine competition!) – wouldn’t it be great to have the GI curve right there on the label, instead of reading through fat, fiber, and protein, and trying to guess what it would do to blood sugar? (Caveat: Erik had nothing to do with this swag at a D-friendly label!) Or, a friend suggested, labels could add bar codes that a diet-specific app could scan and filter for diabetes, gluten-free, etc.
This would be great for the general population, too, given that roughly half the US population is estimated to be pre-diabetic and allergies/digestive conditions of various sorts are either on the rise or being more readily recognized. There should be an app for that!
