2016
Allcook
Introducing Allcook, a groundbreaking food processor meticulously crafted to revolutionize your culinary journey. Born from a deep understanding of user needs, Allcook seamlessly blends international design trends with unparalleled functionality. This sleek and modern appliance not only elevates your kitchen aesthetics but also simplifies every aspect of food preparation. From its powerful motor to versatile attachments, Allcook is a statement of innovation, combining form and function for a delightful cooking experience.
Background.
To maintain leadership in Small Home Appliances (SHA) sector, Allcook Industries set off to conduct various research studies, one of which focused on food preparation appliances. With an aim to better understand user challenges and identify key opportunities, enabling them to enhance their products and services to meet evolving customer needs effectively.
Project Type: User / Market Research and Industrial Design
Client: Alcook Industries
Duration: 4 months
Role: Project Lead, UXR, Moderator, Industrial Designer
Goals:
Analyzing user needs and challenges, keeping a vigilant eye on both competition and global trends, and strategically aligning outcomes with business objectives and goals. This approach serves as a guiding principle in shaping the design of innovative products poised for success in the market.
Research Process.
Why?
This research is conducted to identify the challenges faced by users while preparing their meals everyday, and understand what cooking appliances they use the most and what are they expecting from any cooking aid tool with a more focus on food processors and understand challenges they face.
How?
Recorded in-home visit interviews with observation of how users prepare their meals through out the day, in Egypt’s 4 most influential purchasing cities.
Who?
Typical family member in-charge of preparing food everyday
Age 25-35 (newly weds) / 36-45 (established family)
Food preparation appliances owners (Food processor/blender/chopper/mincer…)
Sample?
Analysis and Synthesis.
After conducting 21 interviews, it was clear that the most typical family member to prepare or cook meals at home was the wife or the mother. Almost all of them owned at least one food preparation appliances.
Our participants mostly fell under 4 main categories:
Newly weds house wives
Newly weds working wives/moms
Mature family house wives
Mature family working moms
Type of food prep. appliance
Brands owned
Usage time
Pain points.
We gathered most recurring pain points that were verbally stated during our observation sessions on sticky notes and started sticking them to a white board.
We then noticed patterns and similarities between some insights so we grouped them under relevant categories.
Hidden pain points.
We also kept a sharp eye observing usage and attitudes of our participants while preparing meals…we were able to identify hidden challenges that users didn’t notice state them out loud.
They were rather adapting their way around them thinking it’s their fault or thats how a design should be and they have to accept it and carry on.
That’s a key benefit of live observation sessions, a designer can identify weakness and turn them to opportunities to tackle and create new value prepositions and enhanced experiences.
Users.
Creating personas and showcase their user journeys helps build more connection with the analyzed data from the previous research and provides an idea of how to meet users’ needs or challenges. They also help understand and identify pain points and highlight opportunities as well.
Food processor user journey .
Since this study focuses mainly on food processors, a dedicated user journey map was created shedding the light on the period where lunch is being prepared… from selecting what will be cooked all the way to cleaning and re-storing of the food processor
Competitors audit .
Auditing benchmark models and brands specified by the marketing and brand manager’s team.
Comparing several attributes:
Motor power
Jug/bowl capacity
Jug/bowl material
Accessories
Reviews
Price
New features
Define and prioritize problems vs goals .
Our research pin points several insights, however after sharing our entire research process with stakeholders, 2 main insights were selected to be tackled with more priority and a free 3rd insight was allowed for the ID (industrial design) team to pick and work on as a second priority as long as the outcome would still align with the business goals and project timeline.
Ideation Process.
Brainstorm
We usually gather the entire ID team for a quick brainstorm session. So that people not involved in the project could add some fresh eye input. We always use sticky notes and rapid doodling to explain ideas or features.
Down selection
Later on, project leads (Me + design manager) gather and discuss all proposed ideas and choose the most promising ones based on a scoring system.
Create
After down selecting to 3 promising directions, I start further developing keywords and ideas into more meaningful self expressing sketches.
Develop and validate.
After thorough discussion with my design manager, we agreed to adjust and add some details in the 3 designs.
The next step was developing them further by building them on 3D CAD and 3D print them to be able to visualize all aspects and validate ideas accurately and start adjusting designs further.
Refine.
Having physical mock-ups scale 1:1 allows a designer to truly feel every aspect of the form and design and compare usability and aesthetics and allows stakeholders and members from cross functioning teams to try and truly critique each design concept and identify points for further improvements or alteration.
Finalize.
After several iterations, testing and validation from stakeholders, I was able to finalize one winning concept…Allcook
Allcook is the ultimate mini cooking assistant, it’s very compact yet powerful you would regret all the past years you spent prepping meals manually or in the classical way shuffling between 2-3 products. With it’s intuitive interface that dictates usability, you will no longer struggle to decipher the instructions on your food processor.