The three ideas I chose to move forward with was the Fruit Hammock, the Slide-Out Shelf, and the Lazy Susan Pull-Out Drawer. I created an online survey to ask “Could you see yourself using this product?” and “How much would you pay for this product?”. From this survey I got 18 responses and I compiled pie charts for the first question and a bar graph of the average price that would be paid for each product.
From the results it can be shown that the Slide-Out Shelf is the product idea with the most potential to actually be used by the respondents and was also unsurprisingly the product they would then spend the most amount of money on. The fruit hammock was also well liked but only at a much lower price compared to the other product ideas. The Lazy Susan product idea was fairly divisive with 50% saying both yes and no to whether or not they could see themselves using it. The average price they would pay for this product was in the middle of the three ideas at $18.
Benchmarking 2x2s and Patent Search
Fruit Hammock:
There are a lot of products designed to hold fruit and specifically hang bananas to keep them from ripening all the other fruits with them. Here are a few I chose to benchmark based on price and novelty.
The patent search for the fruit hammock did not lead me anywhere in particular. I have a feeling that the idea is too simple to even be patentable which is why I could find handmade versions on etsy. So heres a patent of an actual hammock for reference!
Slide-Out Shelf:
When benchmarking the Slide-Out Shelf I found a few slightly similar products on the market. I compared these on a 2x2 with one axis being price and the other axis being ease of accessibility.
The patent search for the slide out drawer brought me to a patent for a slide out drawer within a refrigerator. While this isn’t an external product and is intended for fitting directly within the design of a fridge, it is still the same idea of a sliding out fridge shelf.
Lazy Susan Pull-Out Drawer:
The three products I found related to lazy susans and simple fridge drawers that I could find on Amazon. I did a 2x2 benchmark of the three based on cost and efficiency of space used.
Similar to the Slide-Out Shelf patent search, I found a patent related to this idea that is also designed for being implemented directly into the fridge. Regardless, it does exactly what I envisioned the “Lazy Susan Pull-Out Drawer” to do except for the fact that it would attach to a pre-existing shelf.
Feasibility Concerns
My greatest concerns about the feasibility of the Slide-out Shelf is that it has to hold a whole shelf of food and would be difficult to secure to the existing shelf and still provide this function.
My concern with the Lazy Susan Drawer is similar to the Slide-out Shelf but since it doesn’t have to fully slide out due to the rotating nature of the product, it is less of a concern as the Slide-out Drawer.
I have very few concerns regarding the Fruit Hammock. It is an extremely simple idea and the only concern would be making it easily adjustable and installable, which shouldn’t be too difficult of a design task.
Pugh Chart
Taking the research and putting it all together in a Pugh chart gave some revealing insights. I weighted both cost and feasibility because those are incredibly important in making a product viable. The cost and difficulty in making a whole shelf replacement that can cantilever was the downfall of the slide-out shelf. While the slide out shelf is a great idea, unless it is implemented directly into the fridge in the first place, it isn’t really possible. The fruit hammock excelled in the cost and feasibility categories which brought it to be the winner of the selection process. While I originally really wanted the Lazy Susan Drawer to be the winner, I can’t weigh the scales in my favor and I chose the Fruit Hammock to be my final idea.
Sketch Model and Feedback
I didn’t have a whole lot of materials available for my sketch model so instead of the desired mesh hammock I used a dish towel to show off the idea in a simple but effective way. In the example shown I used the sketch model in a mini fridge which doesn’t have a whole lot of vertical space to be optimized by the product but I wanted to show someone in person what it could be like. I showed my boss the sketch model to see what feedback he might be able to give. He loved how simple the product could be in that all it takes is a piece of cloth or mesh. He also liked how you can elevate groceries from each other so that you don’t have to unstack them in order to grab them from the fridge. Another thing mentioned was the simplicity of taking it off or moving it around so that it could fit his needs at the specific time.
