USER RESEARCH
ASK (INTERVIEWS):
Since I centered my organization item around the topic of pantries. I focused all my questions for each person about their pantry. I came up with a general list of seventeen questions going into the interviews. Then while interviewing I branched off a little extra on some questions. The main seventeen questions I had going into each interview where..
-Tell me about the last time you looked for a snack in your pantry
-How would you rate the neatness/ organization of your pantry?
-Tell me about the last time you had to cook a meal and gather ingredients from the pantry was it enjoyable? Stressful? Why?
-How do you currently organize your pantry?
-Why do you organize your pantry?
-What is your top priority in organization? Speed? Aesthetics? Why?
-Tell me an experience you had in someone else’s pantry that made you wish you had their organization item or they needed an organization item? What was it? How would it help them?
-Can you tell me about an ideal product that you dreamt of improving your pantry organization?
-How important is pantry organization to you?
-Have you ever had a moment you got in trouble for putting something back in the wrong spot in the pantry? What was it? Does this happen often?
-Walk me through how you put your groceries please
-What can make putting groceries away more enjoyable? Why?
-What is the most popular spot/ items in your pantry? Why?
-Can you explain the difference between your pantry organization now and when you were a kid?
-Are you proud of your pantry?
-Would you let someone look into your pantry? Why or why not?
-How often do you find something expired in your pantry?
Interview one:
I interviewed three people about their pantry experiences, the first person was my neighbor Robin back home. I chose her because, she has a family with kids and also works, so organization is her key to save time. The general basis I got from interviewing her was that her pantry is pretty organized. She claims “My pantry is so organized due to my roll out drawers”. She also keeps the same types of foods near each other; like having bread and chips on the top shelf, more liquid type items on the next shelf, snacks on the next shelf, and bigger boxes on the bottom shelf. Her top priority of pantry organization is easy access. She said, “I work full time when I come home and have to cook I want to make the meal as fast as possible and it starts with grabbing ingredients fast”. Her dream would be to have a walk in pantry to make it even easier to grab food. She also wishes that, “ There should be a easier way to store bagged chips, crackers, pretzels, etc. and potatoes and oinions since they always go bad on me”. I also learned her top drawer is the most popular she said, “My kids are always going in there for snacks”. She is also somewhat proud of how organized her pantry is and would let people see it but also thinks it needs to be organized more.
Interview two:
The second person I interviewed was named Harsh. I chose him because he is around my age and thought if I had a younger perspective and older it would be helpful. Harsh has a organized pantry. He said, “Everything has its own place, the cookies, chips, cereal, and juice are all on the first shelf, the second shelf has bread and pasta, the third shelf holds spices, and the fourth is full of containers”. During the interview he said, “We just put our spices on the shelf”. His family doesn’t even use a spice rack which I thought could be helpful for helping the organization of his pantry. His top priority for pantry organization is speed and simplicity. He just wants to be able to grab and go most of the time. One time harsh was at a friends house and saw that in their pantry they had a rack to hold fruits and veggies so they won’t go bad and a seperate container for garlic and onions so it wouldn’t smell which he thought was neat. The biggest error he found with his pantry was when he tired pulling something out from the back everything infront would fall down with it. He also said, “Pantry organization is important to me eight out of ten points since it makes grabbing food less stressful”.
Interview three:
Katherine was the last person I interviewed. She was a random young adult I talked to in Target while I was doing my market survey. I figured I would interview someone I had no connection to and she clearly had some interest in this, since she clearly had an interest in this area. Sadly she didn’t want her picture taken but she at least agreed to answer a couple of my questions. I learned quickly why she might not have wanted her picture taken, since she described by far the messiest pantry I have heard of. She rated her pantry organization three out of ten and wasn’t very proud of it. “The biggest reason why my pantry is so unorganized is because my shelfs are too deep and I end up shoving all the new grocries in front, which pushes the old ones back”. She said her dream organization fix would be, “Addable rollout shelfs so I can see in the back”. She also buys a bunch of duplicates of food since her kids just grab food and don’t put it back in the correct spot so she assumes they are out of that item. She said she wants to organize her pantry so, “I can save money on spoiled food in the back of the shelfs and food that is duplicated”. I also learned that putting groceries is a big time spender for her and would rather shove everything on to an open shelf. Lastly she claims that she is very jealious when she sees shelfs that can be pulled out like drawers or pantries with shallower shelfs and more shelfs.
OBSERVE (PART ONE):
While I went home this weekend I asked my neighbors if any of them would be going to the grocery store sometime soon. Luckily one of my neighbors said they were going to and I kindly asked if they would mind letting me observe how they put away their groceries and they said, “SURE!”. I got a call from them later that night after his wife got back and he started putting the groceries away after I got settled. I wasn't too scared of him changing his patterns for putting them away since he was already in his pajamas while I was there. All the five bags where on the island to start with. He then started by grabbing one bag and setting it on the floor infront of the pantry. Then he unloaded two boxes of cereal and put them on the top shelf, then one box of oatmeal which he also put near the cereal. Next he unloaded a box of rice from the same bag and put it on a shelf that rolled out. Then he took a box of angel hair pasta from the bag and put it on one of the roll out shelfs too. After unloading the first bag completely he tossed the empty bag to the side and went to the island to grab another bag. From this bag he pulled out six cans, three bean cans, one black olive can, and two cans of soup. He put the cans on one of the roll out shelfs which had a unique bleacher set up to elevate cans in the back. The next thing he grabbed from the bag was a jar of pasta sauce which he put near the recently unpacked cans. Then he pulled out a jar of peanut butter and put that on a separate roll out shelf. Finally he moved onto the last bag and set it infront of the pantry. From this bag he pulled out two bags of potato chips and struggled putting it on top near the cereal boxes. Then he unpacked a loaf of bread from the bag and set it on top of everything on the top roll out shelf, where the peanut butter was placed. Then lastly he unpacked a small bag of flour and put it in a jar on the bottom roll out shelf. The last two bags contained all refrigerated and frozen items which varried from frozen pizza to fresh veggies and fruits. Now that he was done I thought to myself about his process and one of the biggest things that stood out to me was how uncomfortable he looked having to bend over to grab each item . This could be solved with a hook inside the cabinet door or some extra shelf space inside to hold the bag. The other thing I took major note of was how nice the bleacher system worked for the cans, so you could see all the labels clearly. I also really liked their roll out shelfs, which made it look really easy to put the groceries away; instead of pushing new groceries onto a shelf and jamming old items further back like Katherine’s situation. The last thing I that stood out to me was how annoying putting the chips away where. The bags are just too big since they are filled with air and take up so much precious space. Robin also complained about this which has got me thinking there has to be a better way to store these.
Recap of what I learned:
-They had roll out shelfs which made it much easier
-Put stuff away in certain places by categories of food
-Had nice “bleachers” for cans to see labels
-Had to keep bending over, there should be a solution for that
-Didn’t have a good place to store chips
-Had nice containers to hold bags of flour and sugar incase they spill
OBSERVE (PART TWO) MARKET SURVEY:
Walmart (In store)
This was the first store I decided to go to since I figured they should have a large selection of items. When I got there the first isle I walked down was the plastic container and dispensers. I was overwhelmed by the amount of options available to me. I noticed three main brands that took up the majority of shelf space. Glad, Rubbermaid, and Ziploc were the three main options out there. I also noticed that there was not that many cylindrical containers available. There where a bunch of cube shaped and rectangular containers. The other isle I walked down had really big glass jars which are useful to hold baked goods or snacks. There were a couple with screw off caps and pop off caps. Then I saw a bunch of snack organizers which also varied from rectangular, cubes, and cylinders. The other big item in this isle was mason jars which are also useful for sorting cookies, snacks, etc. There were a ton of different sizes too. Sizes varied from 8oz to one gallon.
Target (In store)
Target had a bunch of similar products to Walmart. The biggest similarity between the two was the plastic containers. They both had the same storage container shapes and brands. Target and Walmart also both had the same mason jars. Target had more interesting snack dispensers and snack organizers. There was one really creative snack holder which had a plunging mechanism on top to get rid of the air in contact with your food and keep it fresh. The materials used at Target were much nicer than Walmart. Target used metals, woods, glass, and plastic. They also had some very interesting glass jars to organized foods. While I was taking notes about items in the isle a couple came down the isle too and started talking about the glass jars. They made comments that the biggest jar was way too heavy and the stainless steel cover had a much better seal. Then they pulled the cover off and it made a loud ringing sound which, they commented that, that was a nice noise to know when someone goes into the cookie jar. They also came up with another idea for a lock on one of the glass jars so kids won’t steal cookies from the jar.
Container Store (Online)
The last store I observed was the container store online. The first thing I saw on their website was a huge luxury pantry set for $369. It included cubeular tall snack jars, baskets for bread, glass jars, wooden bleachers, chalk markers for tags, cereal dispensers, and a spice rack/ lazy susan. They were also selling a ton of hanging racks that could be hung on the back of pantry doors. Most of them were made of plastic wires. The baskets at the bottom of the rack are bigger then as you go up they get smaller. One of the cooler things I saw were called Like-It Bricks. They were basket shaped to hold foods then they acted like legos were you could stack them in different ways. Then they also sold can dispensers, a spice basket with a handle, and bleachers.
UNPACKING:
After all my interviews and observations I put almost every detail I accquired on a sticky note and stuck them to a white board to organize. I wrote down most quotes that I used from interviews, ideas that came to me while observing or interviewing, everything I starred that I thought was important while gathering information, organizers I found, problems people had, and general shapes and materials used in products. I made all my information into a web once I put it all on the board. I organized it in mutliple categories with pantry organization in the middle.
MAJOR INSIGHTS:
- Bagged goods are really hard to store. (Robin’s interview & observing my neighbor put away groceries)
- People organize their pantry for speed & simplicity. (Robin & Harsh’s interview)
- There should be a stylish jar or container that is child proof. (Observing customers at Target)
- Plastic containers are a good product to make since there is so many of them all ready. (Observing and seeing so many products at each store)
- Putting away groceries is hard on the back since you have to keep bending over to grab goods & there should be a hook or extendable shelf to set your bag on so you don’t have to bend over. (Observing my neighbor put away groceries)
- Putting away groceries is also time consuming and a organization device that is like a slide and sorts all your food for you and keeps it all fresh should be created. (Branching off of Katherine’s interview answer)
- Organization is helpful so you can save money and not waste food that gets expired. (Katherine’s interview)
- Could make a suspendible chip bag holder so bags don’t conflict with other foods. (Robin’s interview & observing my neighbor put away groceries)
- Pulling food down from the back of shelfs knocks other food down and is super annoying when you don't have pull out shelfs. People do not want to take the time and put it back up so the pantry gets more messy. There should also be a fix for this. (Harsh’s interview)
- Pull out shelfs are make pantry organization a thousand times easier because nothing falls down when you pull out an item. (Observing my neighbor and Robin’s interview)
- Some people can not see what they are grabbing for at the top shelf and make a mess up there or make stuff fall down. A pantry mirror on the ceiling could help. (Robin’s interview)
PROBLEM STATEMENTS:
- People need a way to store bagged goods (chips, pretzels, popcorn, etc.) better in pantries because they take up so much space.
- Owners of pantries without pull out shelves need a way to convert their shelfs into pull out shelfs or use products to maximize their pantry space because pull out shelfs in pantries make organization much easier.
- People need a way to automatically sort their groceries because people’s top priorities for organization are for speed, simplicity, and for saving money. An automatic organizer will save time and make putting grocries away faster and easier. It will lastly save money since less food will go bad if the older food is dispensed first.
TIMELINE:
Interviews- 10/7
Observe pt.1- 10/8
Observe pt. 2- 10/8
Unpacking- 10/9
Major insights- 10/9
Problem statements- 10/10
Turn in blog- 10/11
Peer review- 10/13
