How do I approach a Take-Home exercise? Open Oven App
Case of Study
The goal of this post is to explain how I approached a task-home assignment I was given as part of the hiring process for a Product Designer role in a start-up in London. The task was to create a mobile application for a fictional company, Open Oven.
The Task
Open Oven is a new startup that creates smart ovens and other kitchen appliances for the home. Since their launch in 2018, they have been working on the hardware for their products and now, they have moved to do the software piece. You have been contracted by Open Oven to design their mobile app for their button-less oven.
Goal:
“Design an application for a smartphone that will allow customers to fully operate Open Oven’s Buttonless Oven”
The mission of this new start-up was “…to combine tradition with technology and bring developments in the world of hardware and software to the heart of everyone’s home — the kitchen.”
Challenges
The challenge was to solve the given problem and create a product design experience in a limited time. I wanted to show my UX & UI skills by following a logical design process. The result was a high-fidelity prototype to get a sense of the flow and the experience.
Design Process
The process for this task was similar to building a real product. The high-level parts of my process were: clearly defining the problem, understanding our users, developing a proper solution, and measuring its success.
I followed the process explained by Artiom Dashinky in his book “Solving Product Design Exercises”. It is a great framework to approach design tasks in a limited time, going through all the stages of the design process and focusing on those insights that will shape our proposal.
1. Why am I building this product
The first step was to clearly define the problem that I wanted to solve with my product.
During the last years, improvements in kitchen technology are changing the way people cook, store food, and interact with homes. Smart appliances can make managing home easier and continue to improve user’s life by saving time and energy.
Smart ovens connect to home wifi or use Bluetooth to enable users to control it from a smartphone or tablet. This will allow users to:
- Receive useful notifications, ensuring that the oven is working properly
- Saving energy by choosing the right temperature and time for every cooking
- Making cooking easier
- Less worry when users are not at home, having full control of the oven
- Reduce waiting time. People can switch on the oven on their way home
- Add design and value, contributing to home life
2. Who is going to use this product
Once I reframed the problem, I focused on understanding my potential users. Considering its ability to make cooking easier and of great value, here are the specific audiences that the product would appeal to:
- Adult professionals with busy schedules who appreciate home-cooked meals and also want to contribute to home life
- Foodies and people who like cooking in general
- Millennials are conscious about their time, the environment, and their consumption habits. Likely, they are the most interested in technology and more open to buying smart devices
- Middle / Upper class
- Tech-savvy people
- People interested in smart home systems
3. Understanding customer’s context and needs
People would use the application at home or afar. The Wifi connection will allow users to fully control the smart home even when they are not at home. Physically interacting with the oven at home.
Interaction with the product start when users want to prepare some food. If they are not at home they might switch on the oven when they are on their way home.
4. What? Possible Ideas
Then was the time to explore what I could build to fulfill the customer’s needs defined in the previous step. The given task was to design a mobile application that allows users to fully control to fully operate Open Oven’s Buttonless Oven. I listed some properties or features that would solve the problem.
- A single-screen / dashboard that allows users to control all the oven features
- A step by step process that guides users to set up the oven for each meal
- A tap bar menu layout that organise the functions of the app in different categories
- UI design that simulates the traditional oven buttons.
- Dynamic UI that displays options relevant to the selected option that is active and eliminates options that are irrelevant.
User Stories:
User stories helped to understand context, motivations and desired outcomes.
- When leaving the office, I want to be able to preheat the oven so that, I can put the food in the oven when I got home and I can save time and enjoy my dinner on time
- When heating dinner in the oven, I want to receive a notification when it is ready, so that I can switch off the oven from afar and food won’t get burnt
User Journey:
Before jumping into a solution, I mapped out the user’s journey to get a picture of the steps that users take before, during, and after their involvement with the product.
5. The Solution
By then, I was ready to work on the final product. The solution was to build a step-by-step process that would guide users to set up the oven.
I knew that based on users goals and needs, the app should be:
Reliable:
- Display accurate data and information
- Be transparent about oven status and ensure remote control. Health & Safety
Usable:
- Understanding user scenarios and goals
- Focus on functionality. Additional features should distract uses from their main tasks when approaching the app
Assumptions:
In a real product, this process would take months in the final implementation. I wanted to make some assumptions to keep the user flow really simple.
- Users have a compatible Wifi connection at home
- The oven and the smartphone are connected by wifi. That will allow users to control the oven from afar
- The user has created an account on her smartphone and synchronised it with the oven
- Push notifications. It is not possible to turn off notifications for health and safety reasons
- The oven does not have a camera install
- To simplify the flow, it is not possible to load recipes or saved pre-sets
User Flow:
The first step to define the final product was to map out the scenarios and flows that I was thinking of for the app. This flow shows the process that users would follow to cook a meal using the app to control the oven.
Wireframes:
By then I was ready to start sketching the first low-fidelity wireframes. These screens cover the features needed for users to complete their goals when approaching the app: pre-heat oven, select settings, cook meals, notifications…
6. Visual Solution
The entire User Experience was built around a dynamic UI that displays options relevant to the selected option that is active and eliminates options that are irrelevant. The interface relates completely to all types of physical interaction a user would have with the oven, which includes the swipe, the knob turn, and the time set. That would reduce the adaptability to a new digital device.
The app should give users a sense of safety and security. Notifications would be an important feature to ensure that the oven is working properly and users can fully control it from their smartphone.
Pre-heat Oven
Conventional Oven
Prototype
I created an interactive prototype to get a sense of the flow and the experience. It covers the basic transitions and how to click through the product.
Conclusion
The challenge of this task was to create a mobile application to allow users to fully control the oven from their smartphones. This process helped me to define the final solution, a step-by-step process that would guide users to control and set up their oven using the product. Notifications and prompting messages should give users a sense of safety and security. The UI design relates completely to all types of physical interaction a user would have with the oven.
The next step would be to test the prototype with potential users to validate the proposed solutions.
Resources:
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