By Fenya Savage Mantell and Valerie Kin. Final project for ENP64, Methods for Human Factors Engineering, Fall 2024.

Product Description and Target Users:

The goal of this project was to create a product that would remedy a challenge faced by those in a specific age group.

Our product was a set of utensils specifically designed for children ages 3-6 to reduce both strain and mess while eating. While we only designed a spoon because that is the main utensil we observed being used by children, our main focus was on the handle design and how to optimize the shape, material, and angle for kids’ hands and preferred grips. In doing so, we also wanted to minimize the amount of food that is often unable to be scooped up or dropped while young kids eat due to a lack of dexterity. Our hope was that by altering these aspects with the target user in mind, we would be able to provide a more comfortable and enjoyable eating experience for children while also helping parents with mealtime clean-up. The corresponding app was designed for both parents and children and includes helpful resources for both. For the parents, the app allows them to learn more about our product and how it works and be able to find and save recipes they might consider making for their child. For the kids, we provided video resources to encourage good table manners and healthy eating habits in a fun, engaging way. As parents cook, their kids can simultaneously watch these videos and learn about the meal-prepping process, thus creating a family bonding experience that will produce fond memories to last a lifetime.

My contributions:

My portion of the project was focused on the CAD made in SolidWorks and the EZ Eats App made in Figma. To create the spoon, I started with the handle, the most unique aspect of our product. I created a bunch of parallel planes and ovals, the heights and widths of which were informed by research done on typical hand size of children aged 3-6.

We planned our App to have two interfaces available on from one phone, so I created a home screen with buttons to bring the user to the parents page or the kids page. I also made sure the app had simple controls and very clear buttons on each screen because part of its intended use was for children, some of whom would not be able to read, or would simply not be capable of navigating complex interfaces.