What a thermometer kink and bubbles in an oil bottle can teach us About product improvements and Innovation!!!

Often, the simplest inventions come from keen observation and plain common sense. Have you ever wondered why there’s a tiny kink in the old-fashioned analogue thermometers doctors used in the past?

Mercury expands with heat, making it ideal for measuring temperature. In regular thermometers used for weather, mercury rising and falling with daily temperature changes isn’t a problem. But when measuring human temperature, doctors faced a challenge. 

As soon as the patient removed the thermometer from their mouth, the mercury would start dropping to room temperature, which is almost always lower than body temperature. That’s where the small kink (constriction) at the base near the mercury bulb came in. It acted like a stopper, holding the mercury at the highest point reached so the doctor could note the correct temperature before shaking it back down.

The same principle, solving a problem through simple observation, applies to many other products. Take the example of oil cans and bottles from earlier times. Opening them often caused oil to splash onto the container, spill on the kitchen counter, splatter on the person, and worst of all when hot oil was being topped up, it could lead to painful burns.

A smart product development manager came up with a simple fix: leave a little extra space inside the container. This allowed air bubbles to form and oil to pour out smoothly, avoiding splashes altogether.

Management and especially marketing is all about spotting these small but powerful opportunities, often by borrowing ideas from other fields. At the end of the day, what matters is what works especially when it improves customer safety, convenience, and comfort. So, what small tweak will you spot today?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Keywords: Product innovation, small design changes, everyday inventions, observation in product design, thermometer kink, oil bottle bubble design, simple product improvements, customer convenience ideas, product safety tips, marketing through observation, problem solving in design, everyday product hacks

Hashtags: #ProductInnovation #DesignThinking #EverydayInventions #ObservationMatters #MarketingInsights #SimpleSolutions #CustomerConvenience #ProductDesign #InnovationInAction #SmallTweaksBigImpact