Toaster Oven Design

This Homework explores the design of Toaster Ovens which is one of the things we use in our everyday life.

Introduction

From Don Norman's book The Design of everyday things we have -

The two most important characteristics of a good design are Discoverability and Understanding. 

Discoverability - Is it possible to figure out what actions are possible and where and how to perform them?

Understanding - What does it all mean? How is the product supposed to be used? What do all the different controls and settings mean?

According to Don Norman, Discoverability results from the appropriate application of 5 psychological concepts - Affordances, Constraints, Signifiers, Mappings and Feedback

Affordances – Our capability to interact with an object. The term affordance refers to the relationship between a physical object and an interacting agent. An affordance is a relationship between the properties of an object and the capabilities of the agent that determine just how the object could possibly be used.

So what can I do with the toaster Oven? I can Toast, Warm, Broil and Bake and so on.

We mostly use it for Toasting and warming. Broiling and Baking is something its not often used for but we know it can be done.

Signifier – Communicate where the action could take place. Signifiers are deliberate and Intentional.

We have a lot of Signifiers on Toaster Ovens which are - Temperature Control, Function Control, and Timer. These signifiers are present so that the user understands the interface and is easily able to use the toaster oven. However, in some cases, the signifiers are not so obvious, or fail to convey what they intend to.

Constraints - Provides physical, logical, and semantic constraints that guide actions and ease interpretation. The constraints on the Temperature control is that we could set it only up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mappings - The relationship between controls and their actions. The markings around the knobs guide us that the knob needs to be turned in clockwise direction. However, to start, we first need to turn the knob to 20 and then to the desired time. This kind of mapping does not help the end user to use the toaster easily and hence is a bad design.

Feedback - The fact that you get we get to know your action has resulted in a change of status. In toaster ovens it happens in two ways. The sound and the turning of coils to red. However, there could be some improvement in this area.

Below we discuss features of two different toaster ovens and later draw a comparison between them.

Toaster Oven 1

This oven is from the lab.

The controls we see in the above image do not qualify for a very good design.

Temperature Control: It caters to the needs of just Fahrenheit scale users only.

Power: There is no indication if it is powered on.

Start: To start we first need to turn the knob to 20 mins and then to the desired time. This point is very easy to miss. A button to start would help.

Feedback: Ticker sound on start and ding sound on completion. However, this occurs even when the timer is directly turned to the desired temperature without first turning it to 20 minutes since it is purely mechanical. This is a flaw in the design.

Toaster Oven 2

Door - The handle is obvious and simple to use. However, a slight inclination would help.

Power: The power button is very convenient and simple. It lights up blue on turning on and turns off when the toaster is powered off.  

Temperature Control: It has two different scales - Fahrenheit and Celsius. However, Since the measurements are laid out in a circular fashion it might be difficult to read and interpret the scale at times.

Functions: It has 5 functions but no Automatic Cooking Keys. It would help to have some automatic cook keys like pizza, potato and so on.

Feedback: Ticker sound on start and ding sound on completion. However, this occurs even when the toaster is not powered on since it is purely mechanical. This is a flaw in the design.

Comparison between Toaster 1 and Toaster 2:

My Design 

My Design is very unique in many ways given that the controls are laid out on the top instead of having them on the side. The reasoning behind this is that as humans our eyes are trained to read sideways rather than top to bottom. This is the first step towards making the toaster oven simpler and easier to use.

Door:

The door is an obvious-looking pull-down door with a groove to slide fingers in and hold the handle. However, another version of the door could be a hydraulic push-top open door as we see below.

Power:

There is a very obvious Power Button on the top right corner with the Power Control Icon on it. This would light up blue on turning on and reverse on powering off.

Temperature Controls:

The Temperature controls are suitable for both Fahrenheit and Celsius scale users. It has a simple scale running from 0 degrees Celsius to 260 degrees Celsius. On the left side of the scale, its equivalent Fahrenheit degrees are displayed. At any given point in time, we could see the temperature inside the oven as far as it is turned on. We can navigate up or down to increase/ decrease the temperature to suit our needs.

Timer:

The timer is a simple digital display that shows minutes and seconds. For automatic cooking controls the timer is preset, and it would show a countdown. We can also increase or decrease the temperature using the arrow keys.

Language: We have an option to choose between 5 languages. English, Spanish, Mandarin, Italian, and French. However, the default is set to English. We could use the arrow keys to navigate for language selection.

Shade Control: The shade control basically applies to the color of the toast we might want. It is set to medium by default. It 5 levels to choose from varying between Light, Medium, and Dark.

Automatic Cooking Keys:  It has 8 automatic cooking keys which are Toast, Bagel, bake, pizza, broil, warm, defrost, and Potato. These give you a varied range of options to choose from for your daily needs.

Start: After making all the selections we need to press start to get the process started. 

Light: It has an inbuilt light feature that would help us see the color of the food change.

Fan: It also has a fan that helps in clearing out the smell should the food burn in any case.

Conclusion

In this exercise, we explored the design of one of the Everyday things which is a toaster oven. Toaster oven is one of the gadgets we use daily whose design has not changed much over the years and there is a lot of room for improvement in the design. I have proposed a design for a futuristic toaster oven in the hope that would be simpler and easier to use. Its controls are easier to understand and follow. In addition to that I have also tried to add additional features such as Light, Fan, Language control, easier shade control, and alarm clocks

References:

1. CS 422 Notes Lectures Week 1- https://www.evl.uic.edu/aej/422/

2. The Design of Everyday Things by Don Newman - Attached.