About COMMON
भारतीय घरों के लिए औषधि साक्षरता और 3D नमूना प्रदर्शनी
1. The Product Thesis
In millions of Indian homes, medicines are recognised solely by their commercial brand names — Crocin, Combiflam, Vicks, Digene, Alerid, Electral. When people choose remedies based on packaging familiarity rather than active chemical formulations, they risk taking the same drug under two different names.
COMMON is an editorial design and engineering portfolio showcase by Siddhant Sethi. It treats six household medicines as procedural 3D museum specimens, combining tactile examination with rigorous information design to answer five questions in under 60 seconds:
- What is the active chemical ingredient?
- What is it clinically approved for?
- What might make it unsafe for me?
- Could I be taking the same ingredient twice?
- When should I stop browsing and seek urgent medical care?
2. The Paracetamol Overlap Trap
The central lesson of this interface is the dangerous interaction between Crocin Advance (500mg Paracetamol) and Combiflam (400mg Ibuprofen + 325mg Paracetamol).
When someone has fever and body ache, taking one tablet of each delivers 825mg of paracetamol per dose. Across 4 daily doses, that reaches 3,300mg against the 4,000mg maximum daily ceiling. With no warning label linking the two boxes, households routinely risk unintentional liver toxicity.
3. Claim-Level Provenance & Policy
To ensure strict factual accuracy without making prescriptive claims, all clinical content follows a zero-unsourced-claim rule:
- National Formulary of India (NFI / CDSCO): Official Indian Pharmacopoeia standards for tablet dissolution, strengths, and scheduled drug classifications.
- World Health Organization (WHO): Essential Medicines Model Lists and acute dehydration oral rehydration guidelines.
- National Health Service (NHS UK): Clinical Knowledge Summaries for drug-drug interaction cautions and organ toxicity thresholds.
4. Deliberate Constraints (§14)
No Severity Ranking
Severity alters the care pathway (self-care → pharmacist → doctor → emergency), never the medicine ranking.
No Prescribed Dosages
Dosages shown are the physical labelled package strengths, never computed from user inputs.
No Commercial Dark Patterns
No prices, affiliate purchase links, star ratings, or rarity tiers.
WCAG 2.2 AA Accessible
Full keyboard traversal, semantic DOM trees, 200% zoom without horizontal scroll, and reduced motion toggles.
Brand Neutrality Notice (§11.4)
COMMON is strictly unaffiliated with, unendorsed by, and independent from the manufacturers of any brand depicted (including GSK, Sanofi, Procter & Gamble, Abbott, Cipla, and FDC). All registered trademarks belong to their respective holders and are presented solely for household recognition and public educational literacy.