Week 4 Blog

For this week's blog i decided to review the design of my nalgene bottle.  The design of this bottle has both positive and negatives aspects to it.

Positives:
   The bottle holds the perfect amount of water that i would want.  My last nalgene bottle was too small so i would always run out of water and would want more.  Another good aspect of the design is that the plastic is see through which allows me to be able to see how much liquid is in the bottle without opening it.  I know of some water containers that users cannot see through which reduces the desirability to me because i would like to be able to see how much liquid is in the bottle at all times.  The wide opening at the top of the bottle where the cap screws on is also a great design choice because it allows me to put large ice cubes into the bottle very easily.  One of my old water bottles had a tiny opening and it was impossible to get some ice cubes inside of it.  The large opening also makes it much easier to clean the bottle.  My last water bottle had a straw-like tube in it that connected to the top so it was almost impossible to clean the top and the mouth piece.  After a while mold started to grow inside of the mouth piece and i was unable to clean it so i had to throw away the whole bottle.

Negatives:
   The biggest problem i have with the design of this water bottle is there is no comfortable way to carry the bottle.  The bottle is fairly wide so simply wrapping my hand around the side can be difficult especially when the bottle is full because it can be heavy.  The only other option to carry the bottle is by holding onto the plastic strap that keeps the cap on.  The problem with this is the strap is made out of plastic and has sharp edges that dig into my skin while I'm carrying the bottle.  A quick fix to this problem would be to make the strap out of some sort of rubber or a softer material.