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"fridgeTop" - Bringing home-like experience back to the kitchen space
Aim: To build an interactive touch-based device on fridge surface that would help bring back the home-like experience to the kitchen space by engaging distant family members in a familiar fridge activity. The project was done based on 2012 CHI student design competition theme, and has been submitted to the competition.
Project Brief:
We propose an interactive fridge surface, fridgeTop, which connects distant family members by digitally replicating a common home-activity of placing items on the fridge surface. The main goal of the system is to revive the home-like experience of kitchen space in a shared accommodation. The proposed system consists three components: fridge, mobile, and desktop. Fridge is the core interactive and collaborative surface with the other two components provided for ease of content uploading.
The target user group for this device is Asian international students who have moved out of their country for the first time and are in the initial period of settling in. But the use can be extended to highly mobile people who are often in a temporary state of residence.
Click here for the interactive prototype.
The wordpress site documenting the entire process can be accessed at Project fridgeTop
Collaborators: Gin Chieng, Shwetangi Savant, Sylvia Lai, Ian Lin
Nature of the Project: Independent study project for CHI Student Design Competition
Duration: 10 weeks
Methodology adopted:
- Interviews, literature review and background research
Our Design process started with interviewing 16 Asian international students residing currently in Ann Arbor (Michigan, USA).The aim of the interviews was to investigate the home-building perceptions of our target user group. We also studied related literature on kitchen studies, interactive refrigerator surfaces, smart surfaces, etc. - Affinity wall and persona building
We built an affinity wall from the interview notes to understand the home building and recreation process of the target user group. We identified that food constituted a very major part of the home-recreation process. Another major revelation was the need to connect via indirect and subtle ways, which the existing communication technology solutions do not offer.
- Home-making model
We created a home-making model based on this analysis. The model captures the home-building and recreation process of the target group in three phases laid across the time axis. The aim of this model is to depict the process and also identify the break-points which need assitance and can be improved through technology.
- Cultural probe study in the kicthen
To validate our finding from the affinity wall, we conducted a cultural probe study in the kitchen space with 4 participants. We gave the participants mixed-set of 10 personal and general items (photos, bills, notes, cards, etc.). We asked them to first place it anywhere in their home, and then in the kitchen space. We found that users were not comfortable sharing their personal items in a shared accommodation. Another major finding was that when given the option of sticking items in the kitchen space, fridge was the still the most interacted surface. A very important revelation from this study was that users saw value in putting up photos and cards, but not bills, notes, reminders, etc., which were easily managed online.
- Story boarding, lo-fi prototypes, design iterations
After the kitchen study we decided to build the fridgeTop application with the following main features – Notes, Pictures, Creating family circles to include contributors, Privacy and Security setting to suit both the home as well as shared space scenario, some features derived from physical metaphor like curling and falling notes that were not interacted with for long, feature of taping important notes.
- Mid-fi prototype and Usability testing
We conducted usability testing, mainly at concept level, to validate the idea and implementation. The testing was conducted using a mid-fi prototype built on adobe acrobat professional in the form oof an interactive pdf (Click here). We received very positive feedback about the concept and a strong positive reaction for offering an indirect and on-the-go method of connecting with family.
Deliverables:
A mid-fi prototype of the fridgeTop application in the form of an interactive PDF (Click here), a full report and wordpress site documenting the entire design process We have submitted paper for the CHI Student Design Competition on this project. The wordpress site documenting the entire process can be accessed at Project fridgeTop
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