DESIGN THINKING CASE STUDY | IMPROVING THE KITCHEN EXPERIENCE FOR THE USERS
“ Mom, Can you bring a chair into the kitchen? I need to pick an item from the upper shelves.”
Have you ever heard any related phrases before? If yes, let’s continue reading this case study and get to know the untold stories of users’ experiences in the kitchen and how I solved them.
Hey everyone, I am a mechanical engineer turned aspiring UX designer. Being in a creative field has always been an interest of mine, be it sketching from a younger age or thinking outside the box while solving certain problems. To satiate this problem-solving hunger and start my UX designer journey, I enrolled myself in the UX Mastery cohort under the mentorship of Anudeep Ayyagari.
FIRST PROJECT
I got a chance to work on my first design thinking project as a part of this cohort. I was assigned to a group of 9 members. Each member had to uniquely select one area of the home. We need to implement the design thinking process to enhance the user experience.
I had a debate in the group while selecting the kitchen area because different members wanted the same area. I selected it because I worked less in that area and rarely had issues. I wanted to challenge myself to find out different usability issues from the users, even if they are comfortable using it just like me.
In the process, I understood the importance of debate because we have to fight for what we want and, most importantly, we should know why we want it. If we can convey our points to the team better, then the win will be ours.
Since the heart of this project is “Design Thinking,” let’s understand this term first.
Design thinking is an approach used for practical and creative problem-solving. It focuses on humans first and foremost, seeking to understand people’s needs and come up with effective solutions to meet those needs.
The Design Thinking process can be broken down into five steps or phases. Let’s have a look at the diagram below.
The best part of the design thinking process is that we can switch to any step as per our requirements. It is an iterative process.
The most important part of UX is “I am not the user.” Since I am not a user, I had to go to users to get an idea of the challenges they are facing in the area that I have chosen.
keeping that in mind. I started my project with an empathise stage.
STAGE 01- EMPATHISE
During this stage, I spent time getting to know the user and understanding their wants, needs, and objectives. My users were 5 members of my Design Thinking project group.
I created a questionnaire to better understand the user’s day-to-day interactions and looked for opportunities to use my UX skills to improve their kitchen experience.
I had chosen Zoom one-on-one sessions as my medium of interaction with my users. During some instances, I encountered network issues and opted for a mobile call with a user, with my notepad ready to take notes.
I asked the following questions to the users to drive a conversation with them.
1. Can you tell me the structure of your kitchen? Which items do you interact with while working?
2. How much time do you spend in the kitchen? Which process takes most of your time?
3. Which kitchen task do you always wish someone else would do instead of you?
4. How and where do you wash your utensils? After washing, where do you keep that? Can you share your recent experience?
5. How many people can work together in the kitchen?
6. When any guest comes or is about to come to your home, do you notice any change in your way of doing work? Can you share your recent experience?
7. What dishes do you eat daily, and what process do you follow to prepare them?
8. What happens when you make paratha or dal tadka?
9. Where do you store your groceries? Have you faced any kind of challenge while storing them?
10. Do you use your mobile while working in the kitchen? What happens when someone calls you while you are working in the kitchen?
11. What do you like and hate about the kitchen? (Tell me one thing.)
12. Which stove do you use? 1 burner, 2 burners, 3…….?
13. Is there sufficient natural light and ventilation?
14. If you got a chance to renovate your kitchen, what one thing do you want to change in your kitchen and why?
The following questions got tweaked in between as per the conversations. I kept my questions open-ended, allowing users to express themselves comfortably.
I noted down the likes, dislikes, and gaps that I found in the experience of the users. Here are the key insights from the interview.
After getting insights from users, I need to define the underlying root problem in the experience of the users so that I can understand their problems well.
STAGE 02- DEFINE
The main focus of this stage is to define users’ problems well without thinking about solutions. While defining the problem, it was essential for me to know: “Why is it important for me to solve that particular problem?”
I proceeded further to determine the what and why of the problem.
1) Dress got wet and water splashed everywhere while cleaning utensils in the sink.
Working in a wet dress for long hours can affect a user’s health. Users like Sakshi loves to work in continuation and if their dress becomes wet then they have to stop the work to change cloth which can hinder the working flow.
2) Tiles/floor in the kitchen got slippery.
A slippery floor can increase the chances of an accident because in the kitchen of the users there is some hard material like a cylinder and container and collision of the head with this can be fatal sometimes.
3) Kitchen filled with smoke while making Parathas or Tempering.
A smoky kitchen can decrease the working efficiency of the user because smoke irritates the user as well as the surrounding people.
4) Even one drop of sugar or dishes attracts insects.
Having insects in the kitchen decreases hygiene.
5) There is no source of getting cool air.
Continuous working in a hot environment increases fatigue. Users can’t work for long hours if required.
6) No proper space for keeping mobile phones and difficulty in attending calls while working.
Users scroll through Youtube videos to find recipes while trying new dishes on mobiles. Users love to listen to songs while working. They don’t want to miss any important calls while working in the kitchen.
7) Drying washed utensils is time taking. Water from washed utensils gets spread on the counter and sometimes on the floor.
Water makes the floor slippery. The process of drying the utensils should be fast so that users can use them or can keep them in the proper place.
8) Hard to find items in need from cabinets or shelves.
Not getting the right item at the right time frustrates users like Pushpdeep. The process of finding one item from the cabinets leads to disorganizing the already present items.
9) Kitchen becomes messy or cluttered while making so many dishes there.
Making too many things at a time makes the kitchen disorganised. Cleaning a cluttered place is too irritating.
10) Food Particles clogged the sink.
A clogged sink hinders the task that needs to be performed on the sink. It can give a foul smell.
11) Difficulty in picking items from upper shelves or cabinets.
Small-height users find difficulty in reaching upper cabinets. Aditi faced difficulty in finding items from the upper cabinets.
Writing notes and documenting them properly helped me define the problem well. Since I had defined the problem well based on the interview’s insights, I moved further into the ideation stage to find different ways of solving users’ problems.
STAGE 03- IDEATE
One well-defined problem can be solved in different ways, but the human brain tends to think of a surface-level idea the first time. To push my thinking boundary further, I used Crazy 8 ideas.
The Crazy 8 technique allows us to come up with 8 ideas in 8 minutes each.
This activity challenged me to come up with 40+ ideas for the 11 defined problems.
👉 Dress got wet and water splashed everywhere while cleaning utensils in the sink.
Ideas: 1) Waterproof apron while washing utensils.
2) Water flow adjuster tap.
3) Water absorber pads along the sink boundary.
4) Flexible tap with adjustable height.
5) Supplying the hot air supply in between to evaporate the splashing water quickly.
👉 Tiles/Floor in the kitchen got slippery.
Ideas: 1) Anti-slippery floor mat.
2) Anti-slippery sleepers.
3) Self-cleaning floor.
4) One-touch cleaning with a robot.
👉 Kitchen filled with smoke while making Parathas or Tempering.
Ideas: 1) Close lid utensil.
2) Pan requiring less oil to cook.
3) Smoke duct chimney.
4) Pre-installed Smoke point info of oil and auto-adjusting gas flame to prevent smoke.
👉 Even one drop of sugar or dishes attracts insects.
Ideas: 1) Insect-proof paint in the kitchen.
2) Detachable separate insect-proof small space to collect waste that can be thrown into a big dustbin later.
3) Self-kitchen counter cleaning with water and a separate passage for that collected water to drain.
4) Robotic hand to perfectly serve dishes or take out ingredients from the container.
👉 There is no source of getting cool air.
Ideas: 1) Redirecting the outside cooler or fan air to the kitchen
2) Neckband with a fan.
3) Gas stove flame protection cover so that the user can use a ceiling fan in the kitchen
👉 Difficulty in using Mobile while working in the kitchen.
Ideas: 1) Using a detachable mobile stand that can be stuck anywhere.
2) Transparent flexible mobile cover that can be attached to a dress while working. (User can click on mobile even with cover).
3) Projecting Mobile screen to the Kitchen wall and using mobile with voice command.
4) Device to schedule user’s mobile task and it can display that task automatically when the times come.
👉 Drying washed utensils is time taking. Water from washed utensils gets spread on the counter and sometimes on the floor.
Ideas: 1) Hot Air supply while washing dishes.
2) Placing washed utensils in a container that is designed to make evaporation fast.
3)Water collector attached to utensils stand.
4) Automated utensils cleaning with water absorber cloth. (After Dishwashing)
👉 Hard to find needy items in cabinets or shelves.
Ideas: 1) Provide a system for the systematic naming of items in the cabinet’s compartment.
2) Beep Sound tracker attached to every item that can be handled with a mobile App.
3) Cabinet that shows the list of each item present in it. (Users have to manually update that list before placing any item into the cabinet)
4) Product that tells which item is placed at which location.
👉 Kitchen becomes messy or cluttered due to placing so many ingredients or items on the counter while making so many dishes there.
Ideas: 1) A set of detachable containers to fill current ingredients that can be used while making food
2) A separate organizer attached with a counter to place useful items
3) A set of Spill-proof round-shaped fold-able joined containers that can be filled with different items or ingredients as per the menu and can be hung on the wall.
👉 Food Particles clogged the sink.
Ideas: 1)Left-out food collector machine attached to the dustbin that is near the sink.
2) A detachable sieve is attached to the sink.
3) Liquid that dissolves the leftover food before washing utensils.
👉 Difficulty in picking items from upper shelves or cabinets.
Ideas: 1) Cabinets that can be adjusted to user height while picking any item from there.
2)A foldable chair to help the user pick an item from height.
3) Foldable ladder attached with cabinets.
After brainstorming all the ideas, I picked the top 3 ideas, which I thought would impact the users most.
⭐ Idea 1: Flexible tap with adjustable height.
Why I picked this: While interviewing Sakshi, she shared her experience of getting her clothes as well as the floor wet while washing utensils. While trying to understand the root problem, I found that there will be a huge gap between the flow of tap water and the utensils that users wash that allows flowing water to spread outside the sink and eventually wet the dress and floor, causing users to be uncomfortable while working. I was trying to come up with an idea that would solve this gap issue, and hence I picked this idea to help many users like Sakshi.
⭐ Idea 2: Cabinets that can be adjusted to user height while picking any item from there.
Why I picked this: Aditi shared her experience of using a chair to pick items from upper cabinets. This additional requirement hindered the ability of users to take quick action. Picking up a chair from outside makes the user’s hands dirty, and they have to again wash their hands to resume work in the kitchen. To save users like Aditi from this hustle, I have chosen this idea.
⭐ Idea 3: A set of Spill-proof round-shaped fold-able Detachable containers that can be filled with different items or ingredients as per the menu and can be hung on the wall.
Why I picked this: Vijay Viknesh is a college student He has less experience working in the kitchen. He shared his experience of making the kitchen messy while preparing food when his mother is not present in the home. I want to ideate a product that can help novice users like him organize the kitchen while working, so I chose this idea.
With the limited time I had, I wanted to focus only on one idea so that I could go deep into the problem and come up with a product that could solve the underlying root problem and enhance the user experience. I chose one idea out of the top 3 to finally make a prototype of it.
STAGE 04- PROTOTYPE
In the prototype stage, I finally got a chance to turn my idea into a presentable form. I picked the “Adjustable Height Cabinet” idea for this stage because I thought this solution has the potential to impact a large number of users who share the same problem just like my targeted users.
Key insights from the interview that helped me to reach ideation of the product “Adjustable Height Cabinet” are
1) Fixed upper cabinets
2) Hands unreachable from the floor.
3) Use of external items like chairs to pick items from the cabinet.
4) A chair may sometime fall short for small-height users. (Hypothesis)
5) Even if users’ hands can reach upper cabinets, it is difficult to access items that are placed last in them. (Hypothesis)
6) Sometimes light is not enough in the kitchen to distinguish different items in the cabinet.
After figuring out problems related to upper cabinets, I started ideating solutions. How can I build cabinets in a way that can solve these problems? After ideating, I come up with an “Adjustable Height Cabinet.”
The key feature of the “Adjustable Height Cabinet”
- Users can easily access the upper cabinet by adjusting its height from the floor.
While including this feature, I had a thought in mind about how I could help my user reach the upper cabinet without the need for external help like a chair. Keeping this thought in mind, I installed a hydraulic uplift system behind a cabinet that can help users in adjusting the cabinet height from the floor. With this system, users can easily pull the cabinet from the floor to their height, place items, and push it back to its original position.
2) Inbuilt Automatic light On/off
I installed the inbuilt smart light in the cabinet because, during the daytime, users like Aditi do not have sufficient light in the kitchen. I keep this feature turned on or off automatically to save users from having to remember too many switches in the kitchen. This feature saves users’ time.
3) Rotating Disc inside to access items from every corner easily.
Users like Pushpdeep face problems finding the items they need due to too much clutter inside the cabinet. Even if they only take one item from the last area of the cabinet, the rest of the items in there become disorganized. To keep users’ cabinets clutter-free and easily accessible, I included this round-shaped rotating organizer inside the cabinet.
Let’s take a look at the prototype design
I keep the top rack without any organizer to give users the freedom of placing heaving large boxes inside the cabinet.
Users can detach the partition of an organizer according to their space needs.
I make a drawing of my prototype and took the help of google photos to explain my product because I didn’t want to spend too much time and money on prototyping.
I made a low-fidelity diagram and moved further to Testing Stage.
STAGE 05- TESTING
I never knew whether the product that I made would work or not because I am not a user. I need to validate my prototype with the actual users. For that purpose, I arranged a meeting with my group members to get their feedback on my prototype.
The main focus was to listen to my users’ feedback and observe what they are saying and why they are saying it.
The feedback that I received from my users is as follows:
Taranjit: Is it possible to organise our items in the lower rack without having to go to the upper rack?
Sakshi: Sakshi told me about the cleaning issues in the existing design of the rack with a round organizer.
Usually, she places some heavy utensils or boxes in the upper cabinets, and she feels like they can’t fit in the organizer.
She needed more space in the cabinet so that big boxes could fit in it.
Divy: He was worried about the cost factor that hydraulic lift-up mechanisms have.
Mahi: He asked, “What if I place some unstable round object in the upper cabinet? It can fall easily because there is no protection.
Round organisers are limiting the use of space because certain items can’t fit into the existing size of the organizer.
I noted down all the feedback from the users and tried to prioritise what I could solve now in my existing design based on users’ feedback that could enhance the user experience. I moved to the revised prototype.
REVISED PROTOTYPE
Key points that I was thinking about while making a revised prototype are
👉How can I help my user in cleaning the cabinet effortlessly?
👉How can I stop the unstable items from falling?
👉How can I make a cabinet in such a way that users can use the space according to their needs?
👉How can the user fit more items in the existing organizer?
The key features that I included in my revised prototype are as follows:
1) I provided detachable racks so that users can use the space according to their needs.
2) Multiple slots at multiple locations will be provided for the rack to fit. Users can easily adjust the space between racks.
3) A detachable round organiser will be provided to help with rack cleaning.
4) A round organiser shape can be converted into a rectangle with two semi-circles (as per need). This can solve the issue of limited space owing to the round organizer.
5) I provided a stopper at the top rack so that it can protect unstable objects.
FUTURE SCOPE
Making a product is a never-ending process because there is always scope for iterations in the existing design as per the users’ feedback.
Keeping this point in mind, I ended my project with my first iteration and kept all other iterations for the future scope.
In the future, I would like to add a more budget-friendly mechanism to bring the cabinet to the user’s height and push it back to its original position after use.
KEY LEARNINGS
👉 The best thing that I learned in this project is that I am not the user, and I don’t know what will work or not unless I talk with them and gain insights.
👉 I learned the new concept of non-textbook learning. I did this project with my common sense.
👉 I learned to read between the lines from the user interview, which helps me determine the underlying root cause of the problem that users face.
👉 I learned the importance of defining problems well because well-defined problems helped generate more ideas for a single problem.
👉 I learned to embrace all kinds of feedback because that feedback allows me to think better than before. It allows me to take my product to the next level.
👉 I learned to let go of my perfectionist mindset and to embrace my mistakes because those lessons will remain forever with me.
Thank you for experiencing this design thinking process until the end with me. Please give your valuable feedback or suggestions that can help me in my next project.
Don’t forget to give 👏, Btw each reader can give up to 50 claps, just saying 😀
Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or you can email me at megha.dokekar@gmail.com
