Design of top of the range ceramic cooktop with emphasis on usability and interface

Abstract

This project’s aim is to develop a ceramic cooktop for the premier market suitable to be sold in Europe, America, Asia and Australia. The final concept is a ceramic cooktop that with as high profit margin as possible for Electrolux also appeals the most for high-end consumers from all over the world. Today ceramic cooktops from different producers have aesthetics very similar to each other and it is hard to differentiate one brand from another. Therefore by designing a cooktop that stands out from the rest, Electrolux’s aim to get in to the premier segment of the market and to profile itself there, would be possible to reach. A problem that soon was noticed was that the interface of cooktops often is very hard to understand and that the control panel technique can be experienced as unreliable. So, emphasis was, besides making an original design, also laid on making the cooktop as user friendly as possible. Facts and information about components were thoroughly read to get a good understanding of the product. Theory about how to make a proper benchmarking and also theories about symbols and gestalts were studied. Following and parallel to this, a systematic development work was conducted by further investigating the actual problem and customer needs. Kitchen standards all over the world were mapped to find out what dimensions the cooktop should have. The result of this was the benchmark form and the product specification. The benchmarking was then carried out by comparing cooktops made both by Electrolux and other producers. By following the benchmark form to grade each cooktop, conclusions about the design were made. User tests on the cooktops gave additional information about usability and interface issues. Dividing the design into sub areas in a screening matrix and brainstorming about these led to a wide range of ideas. The solutions to each area were then combined in different ways to create the best concepts. To choose one concept the necessity of desired criteria’s were weighed against each other and then the concepts were scored by how well they fulfilled those. All this led up to the final concept, the Clear Cooktop. The dimensions of Clear are suited to fit the selected markets as good as possible. It has a smooth and easy to clean top surface consisting of two different types of ceramic glass, black above the elements, and a frosted clear glass piece where the control panel is. The control panel and the interface are developed with capacitive touch control technique in mind. This is a more reliable technique than the techniques used in existing cooktops. The interface, the new control panel technique and the unique combination of two different ceramic glasses will for sure make the cooktop stand out on the market.Validerat; 20101217 (root