How a Capsule Dining Table gives you Flexible dining experience!. Let’s find out.
Hey all,
We all are having a busy life schedule, right? Do you get enough time to spend in home? Do you get good food in home? So, while having food what all are the things makes you comfortable? Does this experience really satisfies you?
Let’s look in to it. This project is mainly focusing on the experience users have while having food. And trying to achieve a product that makes the whole experience of eating food more flexible and convenient to current scenarios.
Let’s have a thought on these situations.
- How is dining area works in your home?
- Does your dining area has space issues?
- Does this positioning of the dining table makes difficult eating?
- Should you prefer any other space to eat? How does you move in to these spaces?
- Does eating in an non specified eating space makes you discomfort?
- Does bringing these food items to these places become difficulty?
- Do you find it difficult to eat food while working in lap, read your books or use your phone?
- While you going to eat food, do you find it difficult to keep your working stuffs somewhere?
Yeah, Let’s discuss further, and understand these situations in a clear manner here in this project.
And I am suggesting everyone to think about the dining activities happening in each one’s house. and observe the actions that each one is taking. If anyone is connecting with this story, i hope they can understand how the products can be helpful for them.
2. How can a Capsule Dining Table works here? Let’s look.
Are you curious to see how a products acts well in all the above scenarios. let me show you it in the beginning itself. and i believe presenting it in the starting itself will help you to understand a clear picture of the product, and how it works. And it can help you to understand further.
Lets look close
So, how all users can use it?
Let’s find out.
Let’s think, user is going to have food
User is very tired of heavy work, also very hungry too. So user is going to dining area to eat food.
User reached Dining area - Dining table is placed closer to wall, due to less space.
User finds that dining table is placed closer to wall. User know that it is placed closer to wall because, user feels like dining area has less space. Here we find that how capsule table works to very well and effectively use these space. capsule table can be used as per users need. even if the Capsule table is placed in the corner, whenever people are coming to eat this Capsule table can bring to the Centre. The mobility feature of the dining table helps user to use space effectively.
Mean while - User want to eat in a different space.
User wants to eat food at different places. eg : Living room to watch tv, work space due to heavy work, kitchen when user is alone.
Lets take user want to watch tv in living room. sitting in sofa and having food by holding plate in hand can be a difficult task. Here we can find that the single units can also movable to any part. so wherever user want to eat food, user can simply take any unit they wanted and place it there, and eat food in it. This gives users more flexibility to eat from anywhere.
Suddenly — User want to engage in to something while eating.
User wants to engage in to something while eating. eg : Suddenly user got a work call, user want to use laptop, user want to use phone, user want to read some book.
Lets take user suddenly got a work call and want to use laptop while eating itself. What to do? Using lap and eating food can be a difficult task. Here we can find that Capsule table has a unit that can be used to keep laptop. and this platform’s height itself can be adjusted according to user’s preferences. user can effectively use laptop while eating itself. This gives more convenience to the user.
In-between — User want to keep and take some item
User wants to take and keep something while eating. eg : User want to keep the phone somewhere, user want some tissue/ cleaning cloth.
Lets take user want some cling cloth while eating. User may be find it hard to get up while eating food and take the thing and comeback. Here we can find that in the Capsule table there is a facility for store essential things. user can take and keep anything immediately from the storing cabin, that is just below the table. This makes user effort less. and user no longer needed to conscious about the things.
In-between —User feels some discomfort and want to be comfortable.
User wants to comfortably sit. Here we can find that the Capsule table has foot rest so that user can get comfortable by putting leg at proper positions. This facility focuses on enhancing the overall experience of the product.
After some time — User Feels like to have some company while eating.
User feels like to have some one near to him while eating. eg : User’s sibling is came to eat food, some guests came while user eating.
Lets take User’s sibling is came to eat food. user is eating siting alone in living area. So user want sibling to join. Sibling also will find difficulty to to sit closer to user. Here we can find that The capsule table has other units available there. so when anyone needed to join. They can simply take any unit they wanted and can attach to the already existing unit. as there is different type of units user can select their options. This facility of the Capsule table provides maximum compatibility and more flexibility.
User finds that — Dining space has complex layout
User finds that user’s dining space has no proper layout to keep a ordinary dining table. What could be done? Here we can find that the Capsule table has different units and it can be joined in more flexible ways.
This also allows user arrange the table as per the space distribution user have in there dining area. user can arrange their units in any particular order as per user want. This helps users to effectively use the available space and positions.
User finds that — There is not much space and need to keep an ordinary table.
User finds that user does have much space to keep an ordinary table, also user does not need more siting space now. Here we can find that the Capsule table has different units. Hence user can choose their compatible units to their dining area. Also later whenever user finds an additional need then user can bring any units and can attach to their existing Capsule units.
Why 3D?
Made sketches in beginning of conceptions. later to explaining each part clearly i went with 3D. for this I made a a unit of Capsule table, later I could use the same unit wherever I wanted.
3. What can be the core issue which lead in to the capsule table. Let’s look
So, lets understand what all are the core issue that to be cleared by Capsule table.
As implied earlier, here I am trying to solve issues of dining spaces of residential users. For these residential users, no further filters are given. And tried to address all economic categories of residential here.
So, Let’s find out.
1. Due to less space dining table is placed closer to wall.
The positioning of the dining table is closer to the wall. As observed mostly two sides of the table are placed very close to the wall. Which makes both of the sides inaccessible to the users. This affects the usage of the dining table. as the function is not properly happening which leads to affects the whole house.
2. Users want to eat food in different spaces, but eating food in improper spaces is difficult.
- Most of the time user want to engage in anything, user prefer to watch TV while eating food. For that user moves to living space with food. User ither sits in the couch or sits in the floor. in both user has to hold the plate in one hand and eat with other hand. both this situation makes user frustrated.
- While the user is alone, user eats food in the kitchen itself, user has to stand in the kitchen to eat food.
- While work is pending user sits in the work space above the laptop itself. User has to keep the food in hand and eat with the other hand while sitting there.
Overall users found it hard to move into these spaces. Also, users found it hard to eat in these improper spaces.
3. Using a phone, laptop, books, etc. while eating food hurts the user’s hand.
- Most of us are prone to the tendency to watch, read, or do something while eating. Is it good or bad etc. can be discussed later. Let me point out that, even though users do this, it is not easy to do so.
- While eating food, holding the phone and controlling the phone with one hand will hurt.
- While eating food, keeping the book open to read it will be a difficult task.
- While eating food and using a laptop with one hand, user may find it difficult to reach out to the laptop.
4. To access essential things user needed to get up and move to it’s place, each time.
- While eating in some place, if user forget to take some essential things, then user needed to getup, move to the place, take the things and come back. Eg: Cleaning cloth.
- Like wise if user doesn’t want some item in the table, user has to getup and take the thing, move to somewhere, keep it there and comeback to continue eating. Eg: Keep phone somewhere before eating.
This all makes user frustrated.
5. Users can get discomfort.
- Users may be using the dining table for eating and further using it for reading books etc. So while user sitting there for a long time user may get some body pain due to bad posture. and which leads to more discomfort.
5. Dining space has become a complex layout.
- Some households do not have a specific space for dining activities.
- Users keep random stuff in the dining space which further leads to a complex layout.
So, let’s discuss, how solving these issues benefits users.
Now all the present generations have hectic work. They manage their work while eating. also, they need some entertainment while eating. We can’t change the perspectives, so instead focusing on making these processes more fruitful and enjoyable to users is essential for a good experience.
4. Now, let me tell you, how i find these problem and how i reached to the capsule table eventually.
Have you ever thought about the importance of dining table in an house?
Dining area acts as the Centre of the house, it connects all the rest area in a functional manner.
This made me curious to analyze the area further. I observed the visible actions happening in dining area carefully. This made me aware of basic possible issues happening in dining area. I it took it as the beginning.
for more deep information i needed to understand real interactions happening in dining spaces. for that i decided to have some chats with people. So i interviewed 5 people and gathered insights.
Finding problem areas from the user insights was really a big task for me.
In the beginning i couldn’t come up with any problems. then i closely observed each insights individually, and i started to noting small user journeys. then i started to assume the possible actions in the situation. and tried to find any possible issues in the action. like wise i come up with a no. of problem areas.
In this process i get stuck at some points, So Before finishing the defining stage itself I jumped in to ideation stage. and made some ideation to the defined problems.
Then while ideating i was able to do it in a good manner. and some insights part was still not finished.
So i come up with an idea of going back to insights and tried to individually do the defining and ideation for each insights. then continuously done this process for all the insights. which was one of the alteration i took, and which helped me to get over the stuck.
The process of the ideation using in this path gave many ideas to go on.
The process of shortlisting the idea was not so easy. it took several 4 levels of iteration.
In some points i stuck as which idea to choose or which idea to drop.
After all these step i come up with 3 ideas.
From this 3 idea selectin the final idea was really hectic task. As I am liking all these 3 ideas, i was stuck at this place.
The i reglazed to have an external Suggestion. So for that i took these 3 ideas and presented all 3 to one of my pier member for better clarity. so this member gave me good insights.
While these we eliminated one as based on potential. the last ideas too had some negatives. So this member suggested me to check the scope of each idea. and which idea can be possibility solve these negatives in the future, that idea choose as the final one.
After these much levels of iteration, The idea Of capsule table finalized. to further go with.
Now as i finalized the idea, i needed to check other possibilities and issues of this idea. For that i needed better valuation and better criticism. So i decided to Explain my ideas to all my pier members.
Here one of my main concern was that my pier members have not know about my idea. So my primary aim was to explain my idea very clearly to them.
So i decided to make a prototype for my idea. Through proto type i can explain each part and it use/ functionality clearly.
So, lets see my prototype.
Presenting the prototype was really interesting. my pier members listened to each part care fully and criticized me. also gave suggestions in the idea.
One of the main thing in this testing is that we can get opportunity to make our product better.
So, let me show you the Suggestion and criticism i got.
Suggestions that is decided to do as per the test.
So as a final lets look in to overall Path that i have travelled to reach to this point.
5. Throughout the path, I took some impotent decisions, that lead me to the Capsule table.
As the whole process is continuing at some points, taking some impotent decision is necessary. Which will eventually lead us to move forward. The whole flow of the project can be based on these decisions. so these decisions have very high value. the ability of one can understand by analyzing how one reached to theses decisions.
6. What can be the next version of the product?
So one of the main things I understood was that any solution is not final, there will always be iterations and changes in the future.
while in the journey itself i identified many ideas that can be implemented in the future, also the suggestions i got also had many ideas.
7. Let me share what all learnings i got while doing the project.
There are mistakes I made and there are things I should consider as part of the project. Each of these becomes a new learning for me.
8. Hey, So can you give me some feed back?
When i am asking you to give me feedback, I am seeing it as an opportunity to improve further. As learning from mistake is an primary thing we have to do.
So I am expecting you to share your views and concerns.
You can comment your feedback on my medium post.
