A Piece of Cake
Rashi Malik
Sophomore, Industrial Design (NID AP)
Module: Simple Product Design
*documenting work and learnings throughout the course*
for detailed design process: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l8EVe6o=/
WEEK 1 (7/06/21–11/06/21)
1. Identifying our individual Areas of Interest
First Task given to the class was finding some good designs around us at home (thanks to the pandemic) and on the internet and explain what features drew us to these products so as to give us a better understanding of our tastes and potential directions of interests.
The products collected by me were:
Based on this collection, I was given few keywords as a head-start for my research and domain selection:
- Form and function integration
- Minimalistic
- One single completeness
What I noticed after getting the keywords is that I’d been subconsciously selecting most objects with the minimalist design philosophy at their core. Products that have clever hidden details that convey their features are what intrigued me more.
After some thought processing around these directions, It struck me that anything Minimalistic and Form Oriented has to be like a piece of cake.
It is easy to have cake but not as easy to make one. It requires maintaining the balance when you are mixing the ingredients and baking to ensure that it just hits that sweet spot between ‘soggy’ and ‘burnt’.
Parallelly, It should be super easy to understand the function of a minimal product and to use it seamlessly but when designing such a product, it has to be made sure that the product achieves that sweet spot between ‘stripped down to bare minimum’ and ‘stopped making any sense’.
Meanwhile, I watched some interviews on You Tube about minimalist design and It helped me to gain a more philosophical view on the subject.
‘Functionality’ of a product cannot be analyzed solely on the basis of its physical features and its efficiency. A design should not only fulfill its objective purpose adequately but also satisfy the subjective by instilling an emotional response in the user. It has to communicate a feeling of curiosity and surprise through its form and at the same time a sense of familiarity and belonging by way of its function.
2. Exploring Domains
Next, We were asked to explore existing works by designers that convey the keywords given to us and analyze them.
I delved into the works of minimalist designers. I selected some works with clever use of form, material, symbolism etc.
I tried to identify attributes related to the each of the products to create a common pool of adjectives that would, in a broader sense, give me a better definition of the look and feel of a minimally designed product.
I then classified them in groups on basis of form and the nature of use to get a better grasp on the opportunity areas.
In order to stay within the area of ‘Simple’ Product Design, I mapped all of the selected products according to their complexity and size.
From the above graph, I studied the products that lie in the ‘Simple-Small’ quadrant and listed some ideas that can be further explored.
WEEK 2 (14/06/21–18/06/21)
Refining and shortlisting domains
The task given to us this week was to apply the AEIOU Design Framework to the selected domains in order to figure out what domains offer optimum design opportunity and at the same time, don’t overburden us in the work from home scenario.
Now that we have decided what theme we want for our cake, we need to finalize the flavor of this cake in order to move ahead.
Based on the feedback I got for previous tasks, I decided to frame the AEIOUs around Objects. I shortlisted six Objects and applied the A, E, I and U (as given in the images) for each of them to arrive at some design briefs.
This task helped me to transform the products that I collected for previous tasks into ‘ideas’ by applying some constraints to each Object and arriving at scenarios complete with the User’s expectation, the Environment of use & the corresponding Activities and Interactions around the product to be designed.
I finalized the following initial design brief for further research.
WEEK 3 (21/06/21–25/06/21)
1. Observation and Process Mapping
To make sure We don’t miss that sweet spot by even an inch for our perfect cake recipe, Its time to run down the preparation steps one last time and make sure no stone is left unturned before we venture ahead!
The first agenda for this week was to observe user behavior when User is performing the task and then to map out the activity and related pain points.
To start with, I thought about the value of clothes in our lives. We interact most intimately with our clothes. Good clothes can make your day, whereas an irritating piece of garment can ruin it!
Clothes are highly valued when they are bought, carefully stored and looked after, but some years down the line you can see the same garment being used as a dusting cloth in any common Indian household.
Following on these lines, I mapped out the life cycle of clothes (garments to be specific).
From studying the life cycle of clothes, I was able to visualize the perceived value of clothes over time.
Life Cycle of Clothes is an aggregate of numerous Usage Cycles of Clothes. The more use cycles a garment goes through, the less it’s perceived value gets.
Next, for getting a deeper understanding of the procedure and context of use, I expanded the Usage Cycle by mapping the Activities, Environment, Interactions, Objects, User for each task throughout the process (Task Analysis) and consequently compiled them w.r.t. the Initial Design Brief.
Following the instructions given, I broke down the process into smaller tasks and then grouped similar tasks together to understand and analyze them better. Grouping tasks gave me sub-processes, increasing the variety of directions the design can take w.r.t. the requirements of these smaller processes and the context of execution.
2. Inferences from Observations
Based on my observations during the task analysis, I identified Bottleneck Areas around the tasks and noted down related Pain Points for the User.
Following on this, I framed Research Question and the topics I want to gather information on through the research.
Research Objective is vital for prioritizing the significance of information to be collected. It will also act a cheat sheet for framing Questionnaires and carrying out experiments.
WEEK 4 (28/06/21–02/07/21)
1. Data Collection
The agenda for this week was to find out answers to the questions that rose from observations in the previous week.
By now, we’re very sure about baking ourselves a cake and have got the recipe on our fingertips. Its about time we gather all the needed ingredients..
I decided to build on my observations from the Task Analysis and started with making a rough list of questions based on the pain points I noted earlier.
To find answers to these questions, I selected three IDEO methods to collect data:
- Surveys & Questionnaires
Four-section questionnaire targeted on collecting data about User’s experiences, methods and issues throughout the process of Laundry. Around 60 people responded to the survey.
- Behavioral Archaeology
Documentation through Photo Survey for evidences of User’s activities arising from cognitive habits, inherent in the placement, wear patterns & organization of things.
- Behavioral Mapping
Mapping of movement of User within the space over 2–3 days to Determine the significance of different places that facilitate specific tasks, the flow of process, & the zones of most frequent use.
2. Data Analysis and Refining Design Brief
From the data collected, I listed down all significant pain point areas and classified them into 3 categories:
→ Transferring to bucket, carrying to & laying on clothes line
→ Sorting after drying, folding & storing
→ Use, Reuse and sorting for Washing
From Week 2, I know that organization of clothes happens twice during the Cloth Usage Cycle — between washing and storing & between use and washing.
To move forward and narrow down my design brief, I considered the following conclusions:
- From survey I know that Folding clothes & Sorting Clothes for Washing are the most mundane cloth organizing tasks.
- Used clothes are usually not arranged as meticulously as washed clothes.
- People interact with used clothes storage more. Often multiple times in a day → hard to avoid mess.
- furniture, doors railing etc. become common affording places for used clothes.
- Used clothes storage will tend to be nearer to changing/ washing area because it looks messy & because of cognitive habits.
Based on above conclusions, I decided to work on cloth organization After Use ( i.e. Between Use and Washing).
Accordingly I refined my Design Brief:
WEEK 5 (05/07/21 - 09/07/21)
1. Identifying factors relevant to the Design
Up till now, we have studied the intangible aspects of our Design. We selected our domain of interest, analyzed the process, collected data & identified the problem areas.
The next step is to translate that information into physical factors that can be applied at the time of conceptualization.
*making sure to gather the flavoring ingredients for our cake as well :)*
This week was about filling the gap between all the information we have collected so far and the actual features of our design; to arrive at the most viable solution.
I listed the factors that would affect my design and cross linked them with the related activities. From that I narrowed down to features/attributes the design can have.
This task gave me a better understanding about the attributes that the design should have to be effective in the listed factor scenarios.
Alongside, I also started analyzing parallel products.
The above analyses helped me prioritize the features of the design, both formal & functional. It also helped me get a clearer picture of the possible iterations, the amount of change that will be acceptable and user scenario.
I finalized the following design features to move forward.
WEEK 6 (12/07/21 - 16/07/21)
Concept Ideations
After collecting and analyzing data for the past 5 weeks, the final step was to design a product that can improve the overall user experience.
Its time to toss the cake into the oven for baking :)
With a reference pool of features from the previous week’s work to ideate on, I started with making a few rough ideations.
After these, I was suggested to combine 2 of my concepts to develop the final concept that would better fulfill the criteria.
I cross-linked each of the concepts with the final design features from the previous week to make sure the concepts fulfill the requirements of the research data.
WEEK 7 & 8 (12/07/21–16/07/21)
1. Mockup
The final step was to refine our design, figure out the dimensions, mechanisms, material etc. I started out by making mockups using corrugated sheet.
Our cake is finally out and ready for icing and the final touchups before we can indulge in!
It helped me a lot to figure out the working mechanism and make it easy to use and efficient. Mockups also helped me finalize the dimensions of the product for practical working.
2. Final Model
Mockups gave me a really strong base to develop the final product model.
3. Final Product Analysis & Value Addition
The Product Is for organization and storage of used clothes, ideally meant for locations near the laundry area so as to provide accessibility and to save space while looking neat.
- Visual Compactness: Nobody likes scattered clothes (especially not used ones)The product looks visually compact by bringing hung clothes closer to each other when retracted without messing up with the order.
- Familiar Form: The basic structure of the product takes inspiration from the age old cloth hanging X-hooks and hence does not make the user feel alienated.
- Organization: expandability eases the organizing procedure by giving user more space between the hooks while also providing label options so that the user doesn’t have to decide which cloth to hang where every time they access the product.
- Capacity: For every label option, there are minimum 5 hooks so that there is more space for hanging and all clothes don’t end up making a heap on one single hook.
