Grad Student Kitchen Ecosystem: Photo-Marking Research
To figure out how to change the Kitchen Ecosystem for the better, our team did a series of Evaluative and Generative research.
Evaluative
- Compile a list of questions based artifact observations.
- Impromptu contextual interviews + structured questions
Generative
- Workshopping solutions: 3 lo-fi prototypes
- Overlaying picture or labeling them, public and personal
From our preliminary research, we saw that there was no clear distinction between public items and private items. It wasn’t obvious if the spice rack on the shelf was for everyone’s use, or if the condiments in the fridge was for private use. To figure out if this confusion between public and private space within the Grad Student Kitchen indeed existed, we decided to test the students.
Research Design
We designed a test that involved taking panorama photos of the kitchen + open fridge and printing the photos in 50% opacity. We then took the grey-ed print-outs and asked kitchen users to mark areas on the photo print-out they believed to be A.) Public, B.) Private, or C.) Not Sure.
First Test — Aadya Krishnaprasad
Although Aadya was in a rush, we asked her to participate in our study and assured her it would only take a few minutes. Supawat and I handed her 3 markers: Yellow for private items, green for unsure, and blue for public items. Aadya then scribbled blue over the kitchen space but marked a few items in the fridge yellow.
Second Test — Michelle Chou
Michelle had a different idea about which areas were public and private in comparison to Aadya. More tests needed to be done, but these first two tests confirmed our suspicions. Unlike Aadya, Michelle believed she had private items stored on the shelf, and also pointed out that items in the fridge got old and yet no one threw the items out.
Third Test — Tilo Krueger
Tilo also was unsure about the public vs. private space in the kitchen. Interestingly Tilo pointed out that items in the fridge were semi-private: people could use other people’s items so long as they replace what was used in a timely fashion.
Conclusion
From these photo marking tests, our group reached several conclusions:
- The fridge is generally seen as completely private, with a few people seeing it as semi private.
- It is unclear whether items on the shelf are public or private, but most people think they are public.
- There is no system in place to discard expired food in the fridge and shelf.
- Condiments and spices are most likely public, because if someone really wanted an item all to themselves they would place it on his or her own desk space.
To find about how my group resolved this public vs. private space confusion, continue reading the other posts in this publication :)
