Why the medication list shows icons, not photos of pills
The NestBoard team · 2026-06-04
The idea sounded obvious
When we started working on the medication tracker, the first instinct was to show actual photos of each pill. Round white tablet, oval blue capsule, chalky pink chewable. It felt like the most helpful thing we could do—let people visually confirm they were grabbing the right bottle from the medicine cabinet.
We mocked it up. It looked medical and precise. Then we put it in front of families.
What broke in testing
The first problem was lighting. A photo taken under kitchen fluorescents didn't match the same pill photographed near a window. Generic ibuprofen from one manufacturer looked different from another. People kept asking, "Wait, is this the right one?"
The second problem was updates. Pills change appearance when you switch pharmacies or refill a prescription. The oblong yellow tablet becomes a round white one, same drug, different supplier. Suddenly your carefully photographed list is out of sync, and you're less confident, not more.
The third problem—and this surprised us—was clutter. When we showed a grid of pill photos on the shared med list, people couldn't scan it quickly. Everything was beige and round and pharmaceutical. The visual similarity that makes pill photos useful for identification made them terrible for navigation.
What icons got right
We switched to simple icons: capsule, tablet, liquid, chewable, syringe, inhaler. Families could scan the list in a second. "Oh, there's the liquid one" or "I'm looking for the inhaler."
The icons don't try to identify the specific pill. They help you identify the type of medication in the moment you need it. You already know you're looking for your kid's liquid antibiotic or your partner's blood pressure tablet. The icon confirms the format, and the label confirms the name.
It turned out that what people needed most wasn't "does this photo match the pill in my hand?" but "which item on this list is the thing I'm trying to give my kid right now?"
Why it matters for shared bottles
Once we made shared bottles work the way families actually use them, the icon approach made even more sense. A single bottle of vitamin D might serve three people. A photo wouldn't clarify whose dose is whose—the icon and the names do that work.
We still let you add notes. If you need to write "small oval, pale yellow" for your own reference, you can. But the interface doesn't pretend a photograph will solve a problem it can't reliably solve.
The boring lesson
Sometimes the obvious design answer—show a picture of the thing—runs into real-world variability. Lighting changes. Suppliers change. People's ability to scan a list under morning chaos matters more than pixel-perfect realism.
Icons felt like a compromise at first. Now they feel like the right tool for the job.