- March 31, 2017
Kitchen Partner
“Defining FOTILE’s new hardware powered by AI (artificial intelligence) for Chinese kitchens”
The project “Kitchen Partner” is intended to define what’s next for FOTILE and Chinese kitchens. As part of the company’s initiative with AI (artificial intelligence) for Chinese kitchens, Its new vision for the future includes AI-powered home device with a new business model. Starting from scratch, our responsibility as a consulting firm was to define the ‘what’, ‘why’, and ‘how’ of the product.
Design Metaphors
At the beginning, we started off by developing ‘design metaphors’ for the product: ‘butler’ (service & Western version of “Ayi”), ‘museum’ (exploration & culture manager), and ‘conductor’ (management).
Contextual Inquiry
Prior to home visits, we have reviewed user scenarios, listing questions (scripts) for contextual inquiry as our aim was to observe, sometimes intervene whilst interviewees are doing their routine at the kitchen. The following are the opportunities we’ve discovered: 1) connectivity (with other appliances at the kitchen), 2) entertainment (usually only one person is at the kitchen), and 3) communication (messaging, remote controlling, sharing photos of your dishes, etc).
- Interview Duration: 1.5-2 hours
- Location: Shanghai
Stakeholder Interview
We also organized stakeholder (FOTILE) interviews so as to understand the client’s viewpoint on the project. The following are the example questions the team and I have gone through. (*Confidential)
- What’s the business model and major revenue channel of the product? device sales? subscription?
- What’s the difference between FOTILE’s current user group and Kitchen Partner’s target user?
- Is this project starting from scratch, or a revision & upgrade of any existing products?
Form Factor
At the same time, we started exploring form factors of the product that have potential to match up with the image of “Kitchen Partner” from our research (digital, voice, and mechanical interaction).
Experience Prototyping
As an extension to our previous research on form factors, we also evaluated intended interaction in a theatrical setting through iteration. *The project is still on-going with confidentiality.
