If any design should be simple and intuitive, surely it would be an emergency medical kit – something you make lack time, treatment expertise or even a clear head to operate well in a disaster situation.
This revamped version of the classic Home First Aid Kit by Gabriele Meldaikyte starts with a system colors assigned to different types of typical injury: yellow for burns and scalds, orange for minor cuts and scratches, and red for deep cuts and bleeding. Intuitively, the darker the color on the spectrum, the more serious the situation.
Anyone who has had to work one-handed (due to an other-hand injury and being alone at the time) to open packages, unscrew containers, unroll gauze and treat a wound knows that most products do not make this easy. Hence the other critical aspect of the design: the box can be opened and its contents deployed and its strips of gauze cut by someone who lacks the normal range of human dexterity.
The idea is that someone who may not have familiarized themselves ahead of time can be walked through the process via clear visual cues and step-by-step instructions: “Every injury is described in steps, guiding the casualty through the treatment process. I have provided special tools to enable this one-handed treatment. These include a bandage applicator, where bandage can be applied much faster and can be cut off with integrated blades (replacing scissors). A plaster and dressing applicator that works like a stamp: where you tear off the top protection layer and then you stamp it on the cut, with the remaining layer working as a protection for the next plaster etc.”
