Scale Kitchen - User Experience

Having spent a couple of days constructing a scale kitchen, some of the girls in my course with a fabulous imaginations helped me gain insights into the what its like to be a five year old in the kitchen.

Each of the girls were asked to talk through and act out their process of cooking the last meal they made. Afterwards they were asked what was most difficult about the experience. Below I have made profiles of each user including a screen shot from their experience and what their insights were.

Name - Rowan Jack

Age - 21

Height - 4ft10”

Cooking - Marinated Chicken

“I found it quite difficult to reach’”

“more time consuming”

“utensils were difficult to use effectively” (even though it was just imaginary)

Rowan has enjoyed this experience, she found it eye opening and engaged really well with the process. Although she found it more time consuming and difficult than expected the task allowed me to follow her physical path in the kitchen and the effort involved in an that showed all the movements made by Rowan.

Name - Marina Petaxa

Age - 21

Height - 5ft4” cm

Cooking - Salmon

Marina thought participating in my research was fun and engaging but wasn't sure what the point was as she thought it was explained to her fully. Although I had done this on purpose to ensure that my users would not feel obligated to think in a specific way, Marina felt she was thinking in terms of ways in which to help me instead of acting naturally. This is interesting feed back and I will try to ensure in future that my users have enough information about the research.

Name - Rebecca Williamson

Age - 22

Height - 5ft4”

Cooking - Vegan Tacos and sweet potato chips

Rebecca's fantastic imagination allowed me to develop some fantastic insights. She really committed to the experience and allowed herself to be immersed in the activity.

Name - Katryna Callaghan

Age - 21

Height - 5ft6”

Cooking - Spaghetti bolognese

Kat's experience using the kitchen was very interesting, Kat made the most complex dish witch was helpful as she used most aspect of the scale kitchen.

Main insights overall -

-Consider users specifically and assess how much information is the appropriate amount to give before completing the research

-The paths the users made while making their meals was complex and due to their height their was a lot of movement and action. (Moving knifes and dropping knifes may be an issue in this scenario and this is why I think the blade would be well off covered automatically when not in use.)

-Utensils that are designed specifically with children in mind would make the experience more pleasant. The utensil could incorporate the ever changing hand sizes if children in some way.