Recently I had to take my dog in for surgery. Over nearly 20 years of owning multiple dogs, this isn't new. But this is the first time design actually played a helpful role for my pet's post-op care.

At every other veterinary practice I've been to—over a half-dozen, from Manhattan to the rural countryside—they hand you med vials with the dosage instructions printed on them. The font on the labels is tiny (requiring reading glasses, for me) and it's impossible to read a full sentence without rotating the vial.

This time, however, this new vet handed me this simple chart:

I was really impressed by the low-tech efficacy of the design. The days are delineated by tonal differences, and a pink highlighter was used on all but one of the boxes, to remind me that one of the drugs was not to be administered on the morning of 2/7 (due to lingering medication from the surgery, I was verbally told). Two of the drugs are meant to be administered for 7 days in a row, and the third for 14 days in a row; the vet tech was easily able to modify the chart to indicate this.

All of this information is on the three barely-legible labels on the vials. But by consolidating it into one chart, the vet practice made the information much easier to grasp and track.

I do wonder why, having been to so many vets, this is the first time I'd seen such a chart. It should be standard practice.

A startup called Pines Footwear aims to produce a new type of sneaker: One that provides a "foot-healthy," minimalist kick that can deliver on-court performance without the excessive foam that can lead to injuries.

"Basketball shoes in the 90s were these big honking foam blocks," says company co-founder Ryan McDermott. If tripped up, the "high stack height…turned into a lever that would just twist your ankle over."

Working with two industry veterans, designer Michael DiTullo and developer Drew Linth, the company came up with a "zero drop" design that keeps your heel at the same height off of the floor as the toes. (Modern sneakers raise the heel with cushioning, which in turn tilts the pelvis and requires the lower back to compensate.) And the "stack height"—the thickness of the sole—is lower, in order to lower the wearer's center of gravity and thus, stability. Additionally, a reinforced toe box and side panels "support dynamic lateral movement," the company says. Overall, the cushioning is designed to be more targeted and purposefully-placed than with a traditional sneaker.

Here's the company's mission and motivations:

The company is attempting to crowdfund their first model, the Atomic Court, which is intended for any court sport (i.e. tennis, basketball). I find the funding model rather strange: They require a minimum $150 contribution, which does not get you a pair of sneakers, but 50% off of a pair of sneakers. I'd guess that might be too big of an ask, but at press time they were at $68,000 in pledges towards their $110,000 funding target.

Minnesota-based Wolf River Electric makes their money installing solar panels, but they're also happy to hand out a free tip for reducing your energy bill. Noting that windows are a key source of heat loss in a home, company founder Justin Nielsen points out: "One of the simplest and most overlooked ways to keep heat in your home this winter costs almost nothing, bubble wrap on your windows."

"It sounds unconventional, but the science is solid. Bubble wrap works as an extra layer of insulation by trapping air between the bubbles, slowing down heat transfer through the glass. Windows are one of the biggest culprits for heat loss in a home, and this is a near-zero-cost fix anyone can do in minutes.

"All you need to do is cut a sheet of bubble wrap to fit your window, lightly mist the glass with water, and press it against the pane, the surface tension holds it in place with no tape or adhesive needed. It lets light in while keeping the cold out.

"It's not something I'd recommend for your main living areas, but for rooms that don't see much use during winter, a guest bedroom, a basement, a utility room, it's a genuinely effective hack. You'd be surprised how much of a difference it makes to the feel of a room and potentially your energy bill."

"Two important tips I'd give though are firstly not to overly mist your windows. Too much moisture behind the bubble wrap can cause condensation. And secondly, make sure that you lay the bubble wrap bubble side to the window.

"It seems counter intuitive, as you'd presume that the other side has more area to stick... but by doing it this way, you get an extra layer of insulation."

With vanities and kitchen counters, the space directly beneath a sink is typically wasted.

DIY'ers, however, have found ways to utilize that space:

So have some manufacturers.

There's no official name for them that I could find, but "plumbing cutout drawer" seems to be a common term.

For those that prefer to half-DIY it, Häfele sells this insert.

It's made out of flexible plastic that can follow different radii, and you can cut the back ends of it to make it fit your application.

This object is colloquially called a Dutch* Broom Hanger.

It's a low-tech way to hold cylindrical objects to the wall.

As for how it works, ignore the Romanesque shape of the ones above, that's a stylistic element that has nothing to do with the object's function. Inside it looks like this:

When you push a broom handle up from the bottom, the roller (which can just be a length of dowel) moves up the incline. As you release the broom, gravity brings the roller back down, and friction causes it to pin the broom handle in place. To release the broom, you simply lift it upward and toward you.

If you didn't want to capture the roller both front and back—if, for instance, you wanted to see the mechanism—you could do this by capturing the roller at the back, using a protrusion on the roller and a track in the rear panel.

The object also lends itself to 3D printing.

StageTop on Etsy

StageTop on Etsy

StageTop on Etsy

StageTop on Etsy

Printable Accessories

Printable Accessories

Printable Accessories

Printable Accessories

*It's called a "Dutch" Broom Hanger after the Pennsylvania Dutch, who are of course not Dutch at all. ("Dutch" is a bastardization of "Deutsch;" the Amish originally migrated from Germany.) The Amish popularized this design sometime in the 18th or 19th century, and still sell them today.

A more modern version of this design eschews the internal ramp and uses a cam instead.

The handle on a cast iron pan is a crucial bit of UI. But once that pan gets hot, the handle is a liability.

In the 1980s, French cookware brand Cristel realized that handles are only useful some of the time. Mainly, when you need to move the cookware, or jiggle the pan. The rest of the time they're either a liability or in the way. So company boss Paul Dodane spent a year and a half refining a design for a removable handle.

This had multiple advantages:

One, when not in use, you could pop the handles off of your cookware and nest them for storage, saving a ton of space.

Two, you could place a pot or pan in the oven (or refrigerator) and remove the handle, allowing them to fit more easily.

Three, you could then pop the handle back on—no oven mitt or potholder required—to remove the cookware from the oven.

Four, you could place the cookware directly onto a trivet and pop the handle off, allowing the cookware to become the serving dish for the table.

And five, removing the handle made it easier to fit the cookware into the sink or dishwasher come clean-up time.

Cristel's system was a hit. Today the company offers multiple lines of cookware and around 30 different handles, long, short, stainless steel, wood-clad, plastic-clad, silicone-clad in multiple colors.