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Key questions
1. How do caregivers of different heights and physical abilities interact with the height adjustable crib in daily use?
2. What aspects of the crib’s design most resonate with users in terms of comfort, safety, and convenience?
3. In what ways does the crib improve or change the caregiving experience compared to traditional cribs?
4. How do caregivers perceive the safety and durability of the crib when using it for extended periods?
Key Unknowns about Market Appeal and Usage
Perceived Value
Perceived Value
Do caregivers see the hydraulic crib as a worthwhile investment compared to less expensive, traditional cribs? Does the added functionality justify the cost for the target market?
User Experience Over Time
User Experience Over Time
Will caregivers find the height adjustment system intuitive and useful in the long run, or is it a feature that may lose appeal after initial use? Understanding ongoing satisfaction will be crucial.
Aesthetic and Practical Preferences
Aesthetic and Practical Preferences
How much do caregivers prioritize design aesthetics versus practical functionality when choosing a crib? This will help refine the balance between form and function in the final product.
Prototype descriptions
The main goal of this prototype was to test whether the standing desk mechanism could effectively handle the weight of the crib and operate smoothly with minimal noise. It also allowed us to validate the concept of easy, adjustable height for caregivers.
Prototype 1: Conversion of Standing Desk Mechanism
Prototype 1: Conversion of Standing Desk Mechanism
Construction Process:
Base Structure:
The base of the crib was built using the standing desk frame. The desk's height-adjustable legs were the foundation for the crib’s height-adjustment mechanism.
Linear Actuators:
The linear actuators from the standing desk were repurposed to control the vertical movement of the crib. These actuators allow smooth, gradual adjustment when raising or lowering the crib to different heights.
Frame Adaptation:
A temporary wooden platform was mounted on the desk frame to simulate the crib’s base. This helped us test the load-bearing capacity of the system, ensuring it could safely handle the combined weight of a baby and additional accessories.
Control Mechanism:
The existing standing desk controls (up/down buttons + preset heights) were retained to make the height adjustment intuitive and easy to use for caregivers.
This prototype focused on combining the ergonomic standing desk mechanism with a functional crib frame. It tested the practicality of using a standing desk system in a real crib design and explored how caregivers would interact with the product
Prototype 2: Crib Frame with Standing Desk Mechanism
Prototype 2: Crib Frame with Standing Desk Mechanism
Construction Process:
Wooden Frame Construction:
The next step involved building a wooden crib frame. A lightweight wood was selected for the frame to ensure portablity and ease of movement. The wooden structure was designed to accommodate the standing desk base securely.
Mounting the Crib to the Base:
The wooden crib was attached to the adjustable desk frame, ensuring that the crib’s weight was evenly distributed across the linear actuator. The design considered safety and stability, so the crib wouldn’t wobble or tip when adjusting the height.
Prototype testing
Participants
Parents, including mothers with postpartum back pain, grandparents, and shorter parents, were involved in testing the prototype.
Test Procedure
Parents were asked to lift a baby (or weighted object) from two cribs—one traditional and the other the height-adjustable prototype. They were encouraged to raise and lower the crib to a height that suited them, and assess both the comfort of use and the physical effort required.
The testing also included placing the baby in and out of the crib multiple times.
Surprising Insights from Prototyping
Ease of Use with Height Adjustments
Desire for a Collapsible or Portable Option
Safety Concerns and Foot Pedal Request
Under-Crib Storage
Changing Table Attachments
Key Takeaways from Prototyping
Height Adjustability is a Game-Changer
The primary success of the standing desk mechanism lies in the ergonomic advantage it offers. Caregivers who would typically experience back pain or discomfort found that it would provide significant relief with the height-adjustable crib, especially in daily routines involving frequent lifting.
Controls Need Refining for Safety and Convenience
The crib's controls must be designed to be more intuitive and safer—parents strongly preferred out-of-reach controls or a foot pedal mechanism to prevent toddlers from accidentally triggering height adjustments.
Flexibility and Mobility Add Value
Portability and storage space under the crib turned out to be high-value features. Incorporating collapsibility as well as storage, adds convenience for parents and boosts the crib’s versatility.
Safety and Stability Must Be Prioritized
Parents noted that safety locks on both the crib’s height-adjustment system and the rails are essential to ensure the baby’s security, especially when the crib is in a raised position. Stability during adjustments and use remains critical.
Design Impact Moving Forward
Foot Pedal for Control
Based on the safety concerns, we will incorporate a foot pedal mechanism for adjusting the crib's height. This will allow for hands-free operation and reduce the risk of a child tampering with the controls.
Collapsible or Portable Design
We will explore adding wheels or a collapsible feature to enhance the crib’s portability, making it easier for parents to move it between rooms.
Under-Crib Storage & Changing Table Attachments
Integrating a storage unit under the crib and a detachable changing table will make the product more practical and multifunctional, increasing its appeal to space-conscious parents.
Improved Safety Mechanisms
We will implement child-proof locks and ensure the height-adjustment system has safety brakes to prevent accidental lowering or raising, prioritizing both child and caregiver safety.
Adjust height based on user type
Based on user data, leveraging the AI to enable the system to automatically adjust the height according to the user who is attending the baby
User clinic
Goals of user clinic
Gather insights from users about their experiences, challenges, and needs.
Address very subjective pain points in real-time to increase satisfaction
Foster connections among users, creating a supportive and collaborative environment
Identify opportunities to refine features or introduce new ones based on user interactions
Share tips, best practices, and success stories
Set-up
Our team intentionally gave the users a short overview of the product so they would approach the clinic with no preconceived notions. The clinic had a final prototype placed in the center of the room with baby-theme music being played (just to set the mood). Users were not provided with a manual purposefully to comprehend how users perceive the functional addition to traditional crib along with the electronics. For the first few minutes, the user is allowed to explore the model and work on whatever they to do (end up using the console to operate the mechanism). Then, asked to share the experience, feedback and followed by a few inquiries from the team.
What we learned?
Users are concerned about the sound of the crib (due to mechanism addition). Fortunately, our final design is noise-free
Users are ready to invest if their issues are addressed properly
Creating an environment that resembles the users' actual usage space, will bring up the latency needs and feedback would be true to what they really experience
User clinic video
Video description: We made an effort to discuss what we did, what users did afterwards, and what we discovered. In order to replicate the same feeling in the video, the background music is really a live recording from the user clinic. The five-minute raw video that is presented here vividly illustrates the user investigation. Because of the loud music and outside noise in the building, the user voice recordings were too low to be included.
User clinic video.mp4Key Performance Indicators for Crib
Objective: Safety assurance
To ensure compliance with all the safety requirements and regulations to protect the baby from hazards.
Indicator 1: Product complying with the ASTM F1169-19 standards i.e., withstanding 50 lbs. mass, crib standard dimensions, and spacing of crib components
Indicator 2 (optional): Ensure recommendations from AAP are addressed in our product.
Objective: Ease of use
To achieve a below 1.5 rating on the Customer Effort Score (CES) (0-5) from all the users
Indicator: The vertical distance between the ground and the point where users attend/pick up the baby should be not less than 30 inches.
Objective: Durability
To ensure the product is intact and in working conditions for up to 10 years as per US Consumer Product Safety Commission recommendations
Indicator: The product should perform 11000 height adjustment cycles (Upward + Downward motion = 1 cycle) with zero damage to any of the features
Objective: Affordability
To provide a competitive price point without compromising on safety and quality
Indicator 1: Price point comparison to assess whether the crib is positioned appropriately within its category
Indicator 2: The cost involved in all the phases of product build is tracked in the cost tracker and its overall cost should not go beyond $200
Objective: Aesthetic appeal
To make a visually appealing design that maintains a rating of a minimum of 4 out of 5 on a slider rating scale.
Indicator 1: Adapt product to Nursery décor i.e., A nursery décor certifier (based on user information from the internet) provides the deployment of designs, colors, finishes, and themes within those spaces.
Why do these Objectives and Indicators matter to us?
It is essential to define a clear objective and the relevant indicators while assessing a product’s fit to the target market.
Specific to the baby products market, the Parents/caretakers/babysitters prioritize the safety of their babies. Meeting the safety standards builds trust and confidence in the product.
Ease of use, aesthetic appeal durability factors influence customer satisfaction. The feedback on these factors provides insights into the likelihood of customers turning to promoters.
Finally, affordability ensures that customers can access quality products within their budgets. This indicator helps in making informed decisions on setting the target prices. And this approach can lead to increased sales and customer satisfaction.
Trade-offs
Current design evaluation
Product fit
1) The crib dimensions and spacing of accessories are well adhered to standards, as we purchased the crib from the market. The accessories such as attachments and electronics are also positioned away from the baby's reach.
2) For safety concerns, the crib edges and corners are enclosed with 45-degree Styrofoam and covered with blankets which serves as an anti-stuck feature.
3) The prominent feature being the height-adjustment mechanism which works flawlessly.
4) The cost involved so far is 150 USD which is way below our target cost. This opens up an opportunity for us to explore more on improving the current product to satisfy all the key performances
Our failures
Messed up a main resource - Intending to understand the standing desk mechanism, we destroyed one of the legs while dismantling it. This changed our support frame design leading us not to experiment by dropping actual weights for the user demo and expo.
Fragmentary Aesthetics - Our crib's sleek black body design is eye-catching, however instead of creating it for the market, our attachments and mattress design are positioned to effectively display the design elements to our customers. Because of time constraints and the need to prioritize design elements, our accessories' aesthetics are purposefully unfocused.
Absence of effective safety accessory - The foot pedal trigger for the mechanism which was initially planned to be incorporated in final design was left behind due to the learnings from our first failure. Our team decided not to tamper the electronics to integrate the foot pedal which might have resulted in another failure.
But....☝️
We would like to celebrate our failures. Because
It gives us a chance to progress our journey towards a flawless product. And we have a plan
To improve aesthetics in the future by developing the actual diaper and storage attachments
To build the algorithm and electronics for the foot pedal-based triggering mechanism by investing time and cost
To help to prevent baby fingers from becoming trapped, a safety net deserves to be built in the spaces between edges ensuring a foolproof design.
To purchase a new standing desk mechanism, incorporating them in current design. So the support system is even more stronger to hold more heights.
To attach the mattress support frame firm enough with the mattress support base (currently foam) so that we can confidently test the product with actual babies.
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