Rethinking desk organisation: drawer unit that has revolving compartments.
Hey there! My name is Suraj Kale. as a beginner in UX, this is the second case study that I'm writing.
In this case study I have designed a physical product to utilise home office space properly. as a beginner, I’m writing this case study with understanding and the knowledge i have.
This case study details my thought process and the reasonings behind the decisions I took along the way.
Background
● Group discussion and topic selection
In a group of 10, we selected 13 topics, the topics being the rooms/areas in a home. selecting every room, for example kitchen, we debated why we deserved that area and explaining our understanding and problems that we face. We kept one thing in our mind, our thinking should not be biased.
I chose Home Office as my topic area. why? because I did not have a home office until recently, I will most likely not have my own biases or proper opinions.
This is a solo project, all of us interviewed 5 people from our own group with the set of questions about their own area.
the process we used in this project is Design Thinking process.
● Why a physical product?
Instead of only focusing on UI design, Physical design project allows me to focus on learning design thinking approach & problem solving skill which are essential for becoming an adaptable UX designer.
● What is design thinking process?
Design thinking is an user-centric problem solving approach that helps designers understand users needs. five stages of the Design thinking:
● Why Design thinking process?
Designers use design thinking because it is a user- centered approach to problem solving that can help them create innovative and effective solutions.
● Why I'm doing this project?
I'm doing this project to learn Design thinking.
Design Thinking has to be realised through practice. Collecting a bunch of topics & learning them from the internet alone is not enough to become a Design thinker.
The Project
UX Research
I can empathise with users by doing UX Research.
UX research focuses on understanding user needs, pain points and thoughts through observation and feedback. User comes first, so the main goal in the research is to step away from my assumptions & prioritise the user. so I Chose primary research.
● Why primary Research?
I need to understand about user’s needs, pain points and experiences in their home office areas by asking the user a series of questions directly.
Primary Research — help me identify usability problems with my product.
Qualitative Data — Detailed insights from the users.
User Interviews
The user interviews were taken with 5 group members in a 1–1 setting.
● Why did I not choose group interviewing?
In a group interview setting, participants could go along with the group’s opinion rather than sharing their own thoughts. this can discourage individuals who’s opinion doesn’t align with majority.
Interview questionnaire
Why do I need questions? before the interviews I need to prepare questions to ask users about the topic area, Home Office. preparing questions will help me gather insights as much as possible during the interview.
The goals I had in my mind before preparing questions —
My Questionnaire —
I prepared Questions based on the goals I have set. For getting Qualitative insights, I prepared mostly open-ended questions on which I can ask leading questions.
The mistakes I made in this stage
There’s no better way to learn than making mistakes. here are some that I made —
● Giving suggestions/Completing what user is trying to say.
● Not asking leading questions. asking leading question can give you insights that not too open people will not give normally.
● Not noting down the insights that I think are useless. every insight is useful.
Interview Insights
Here are the interview insights that I gathered interviewing 5 on my teammates —
Defining the problems
Why define the problems?
defining is important because it helps to ensure that the design solutions developed are addressing the actual pain points & needs of the users. This leads to more effective and user-centered designs.
the problems that I defined-
Ideate
Why generate so many ideas?
Limiting yourself only to the first solutions will erase any chance for other, more valuable ideas.
For coming up with as many ideas I can, I used a method called The Crazy 8.
What is crazy 8?
It’s simple, you have come up with 8 ideas for a problem In 8 minutes. you can come up with less or even more ideas.
only 8 minutes because this prevents being stuck on only one idea. the limited time makes us more likely to come up with more ideas.
I did this technique with all the problems that I could point out, here are the problems and the solutions I came up for them —
I Of Course cannot proceed with this many ideas! I chose the top 3 solution that I thought were worthy of taking to the next step. the next step being choosing that one top idea to proceed with prototyping.
Here are the top three ideas tha I Chose, and the reasoning behind them —
Prototyping
Why to create prototype?
Prototyping is very useful as you can test and refine the product, communicate your idea with others properly. you can also identify and solve the problem early on.
Idea for the prototyping — A vertical revolving organiser.
why?
this idea takes the small organisers you have on your desk and integrates them in a trolly. saving space on the table, additionally giving you more space on top of it to put things on.
The organisers we have on the desk even accumulate dust which is hard to clean. a trolly because you can move the unit around wherever you want.
The prototype
I am good with 3d software so I started making the prototype in blender.
this, right here, is a big mistake I made. elaborated later in the case study.
here is the first prototype that I made —
The prototype has the same dimensions as an Ikea drawer unit,
● Dimensions — 70x50x35cm.
⬇ A normal length drawer on top to accommodate long things like documents or artworks.
⬇ below however, there are 5 small storage drawers that can revolve around in and out of the unit.
⬇ with wheels, can move it around in the workspace.
What problems does it solve?
● Organiser accumulating too much space on the table — it accumulates no space on the table, giving addition space on top to put your existing organisers on.
● On desk organisers with open top accumulate a lot of dust — every compartment is a drawer, there will be minimal dust accumulation.
User Testing
Testing is an essential part of design thinking. testing will uncover the problems and difficulties with the prototype that I failed to notice. after i finished the prototype i conducted a group testing session to collect feedback.
this, unlike interviewing is a group activity.
for this prototype I received a lot of appreciation and feedback from the group I interviewed.
Feedback from the users
Iteration
Why iterate?
As the product is being made for the users, it should provide the user with a good experience. you can fix any issues that came to light during the testing phase.
⬇ Improvements made to the product
● Knobs instead of openings — this fixes the issue with dust accumulating In the drawer
● Coloured knobs on the revolving containers — fixes the issue where user would have looked through every container to find the thing they want, with the coloured knobs they can easily recall where they put everything.
● Bottom section can be removed to clean the inner portion of the unit.
Is this best use of the available space?
Without a doubt, no. the amount of space wasted in the unit by the revolving mechanism and only 5 containers is a lot.
Imagine it this way, this is a small additional table on wheels, with a full size drawer and small storage compartments that would have accumulated a lot of space on the desk itself.
Is this a perfect solution for the problem?
Most probably no, I made this product with the knowledge I have, If I ever got a chance to revisit this project I will refine it for sure.
The mistakes and learnings
Mistakes
- Not making a rough prototype and straight up jump to detailed ones
when you sketch, it is easy to jot down every detail of the product. sketching saves time too. - Making a lot of assumptions
One big assumption I make with this product is that the user already has a table to put this unit besides.
Learnings
- It is okay of the product doesn't solve a lot of issues.
Even god cant fix all the problems. - No product is perfect.
you can refine the product experience but it can never be perfect. - Not to interrupt the user while interviewing.
Completing what they are saying or interrupting them will result in them not opening much. - Only way to properly realise design thinking is practice.
Anyone can just look it up on google and memorise the process, but the only true way you can learn is by doing it yourself.
Thank you for taking your time and reading this case study. I am fully aware that this product that I showcased in this case study is really ambitious. assembling it for sure will be a nightmare for the user.
SideNote — When I was about to do testing, I was more than certain that I will receive overwhelming negative feedback. but to my surprise, people liked it!
until testing I had worked a lot on the mechanism. I was not ready to just ditch the idea. the amount of work I put into this made me feel connected with the idea, so instead of ditching it, I improved it instead.
thanking my mentor UX Anudeep for guidance!
You can contact me at Linkedin to share feedback!
