Creating a usable baking tool for kids!
Background
- Spring 2023
- Team Project (Group of 3)
- Skills: UX, User Research, Human Factors
- Tools: Figma, SolidWorks
Overview
Best Frosting Friends is a project I worked on for a Human Factors Engineering course. My team and I focused on creating an ergonomic and user-friendly frosting tool to enhance the cupcake and cake decorating experience for children. Additionally, we integrated an educational app for parents and kids to use together. This app serves as a valuable tool for parents to instruct young users through the baking process, find recipe inspiration, and showcase their baking projects.
Customer Insights
Problems with current products:
- Messy (spills out the top)
- Difficult to hold for small children (both too big and non-intuitive hand placement)
- Annoying clean up
Wants:
- Easy clean up
- Easy to switch out components
- Good grip
- Closure at top
- Easy to get frosting inside
Secondary wants:
- Reusable
- Can see how much is still inside
Customer
Kids Ages 5-10:
- Want to have fun and learn how to bake
- Specifically how to decorate!
- Learn how to develop fine motor skills
Parents of Kids:
- Wants to help teach their kids
- Does not want to make too much
- Frosting going everywhere or have to prep beforehand to avoid large mess.
Research Process
Our research started by examining the current market. We saw that current piping bags on the market were not reusable or built to be kid friendly. Moreover, kid friendly options like squeeze bottles are hard to clean.
We then looked into mechanisms similar to a caulk gun or cookie press. We decided to incorporate a push-and-pull mechanism into our piping bag design which would allow for greater control and reduce the need for excessive grip force. Additionally, we looked at the materials used in the construction of these guns, particularly the handles, to create a handle that would be easy to grip for children.
Our anthropometric, biomechanic, or musculoskeletal injury concerns primarily relate to concern over children’s ability to push the press if the frosting is thick. Our product attempts to address potential grip strength concerns by having a band on the main tube, so that the user does not have to exert as much energy just for holding the product.
User Feedback
We assessed the needs of users (both parents and children) through a survey. Our initial idea came from our personal experiences using piping bags, but through the survey we learnt more about the challenges kids face. The questions we in the survey included:
- How often do you decorate?
- What are things you like or dislike about decorating?
- What prevents you from decorating?
- What tasks does the parent do (making the frosting, coloring the frosting, prepping the frosting to decorate, decorating, clean up)
- What does the child do?
- What products do you use for decorating?
- What challenges do you face with these products
Two respondent families, including both children and adults, provided insights through this survey.
Issues identified in responses include frosting coming out of the wrong end, difficulty in filling bags, and concerns about cleanliness and lack of compostability, emphasizing the need for sustainability.
Suggestions from respondents include a user-friendly piping bag that retains frosting and a push-and-pull mechanism. Sustainability is also emphasized.
Feedback underscores the challenges with alternative tools like squeeze bottles, guiding the decision to focus on a push and pull mechanism in our frosting tool design.
Due to time constraints were were unable to formally do a task analysis in person. However, we used alternative resources. Usability testing involved a task analysis of kids using piping bags from online videos, confirming concerns about kids struggling to hold the bags and needing significant force to frost. The final design of our product also exudes an aggressive and mechanical aesthetic, which we recognized might not resonate well with young children. Something we would change in the future is focus on infusing the design with elements of friendliness and accessibility. This includes softening the shapes, opting for vibrant colors, incorporating playful features while ensuring ergonomic considerations that we found doing this project remains.
Final Design
The Frosting Friend
To design a kid-friendly piping bag, we studied the mechanisms of water guns, Nerf guns, and caulk guns. This research guided our approach to create an easy and controlled frosting tool for kids.
Our App
Welcome Page
Find Recipes
Users have the option to see the suggested page or their favorited recipe page. Users can filter and generate recipe if they do not know what recipe to pick.
Modify Recommendations
Users have the option to modify the recommended recipes to their preferences allowing for more flexibility especially for users with restricted diet.
Build Community
Sharing recipes and pictures on the app fosters community engagement, instilling pride in users for their creations. Viewing others’ recipes adds an interactive element, allowing users to learn from and be inspired by others.
Lessons I Learned
Have a specific audience
Having a broad audience in mind can lead to the design of a product not fulfilling the needs of any customer. By honing in our audience we were able to design products that considered the unique needs of our target audience.
Set out time for user feedback
The main challenge we encountered was getting feedback and responses. The access we have to getting feedback from young kids is limited and takes time to set up. We did not receive a lot of responses to our survey because people getting back to us was a slow process.