UPenn Graduate School Project

Sous Chef Product Design

Project Overview:

To design an appliance for the home inspired by Dieter Rams for the the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s student design competition.

Key Takeaways:

1. Conducted contextual inquiries in the homes of the target user group (urban millennials) to study their habits and everyday rituals'

2. Created concept sketches and sketch models of different household concepts and narrowed down concepts to kitchen appliances in particular.

3. Iterated on kitchen appliance concept to create two versions of “Sous Chef” concept. V.1 of ‘Sous Chef” won an honorable mention at the competition.

Process:

The project received an honorable mention at Collab’s Student Design Competition, hosted at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

What is it? What’s unique about it?

The average American throws away 300 lbs of food each year, amounting to $2200 in annual grocery expenses per household. This is no surprise, as research interviews revealed that households prefer to prep meals for the workweek during the weekends, predicting their needs in advance when they buy groceries. It can be easy to misjudge food quantities needed per week. Sous Chef strives to reduce food waste and save Americans their grocery money by helping users establish efficient and mindful meal planning, grocery shopping and cooking habits.

It replaces products like cookbooks and recipe apps by going one step further and breaking down recipes into untimed and timed tasks. It complements services like Blue Apron and Amazon Fresh by learning each user’s typical consumption habits and recommending recipes and food quantities based on ingredients the user has in their fridge or obtains from multiple delivery services. 

How does it work?

Version 0 and version I of this kitchen appliance consists of a timer, thermal printer and sound system. The device is Wifi and Bluetooth enabled. Users can send their Sous Chef a recipe and a music playlist via their mobile phones and receive step-by-step, timed and untimed printed instructions to help them stay on track with their cooking. The device ultimately helps the user concentrate on one step at a time, getting in the groove of an efficient cooking flow, while eliminating the distractions and mess that comes with using an iPhone or tablet in the kitchen.

Version 2 of this kitchen appliance consists of a digital interface that can display the timer and cooking steps, while speaking out each step as needed via a voice-based system.

View the Mobile App Prototype:

View the Sous Chef Appliance Interface:

Watch My Kickstarter Video:

Design Process

Inspiration

I got this idea after observing meal prep kitchen rituals during user interviews and combining these insights with my experience of working at a sandwich shop. I was always responsible for making the deli sandwiches during the lunch rush hour and would receive multiple, thermal printed slips with custom orders for individual customers. I would hang these slips above the deli station and make 2-3 sandwiches at a time, trying to make the process as efficient as possible and rushing to get through the lunch rush hour. I learned a lot about efficiency and food waste from working in restaurants and cafes. I would like to apply these learnings to cooking in the home. 

Next Steps

Version 0 of Sous Chef was recently entered into the Philadelphia Art Museum's student design competition (Collab) and received an honorable mention from one of the judges, who is a design manager at OXO. Based on the judge's feedback, I refined my concept, supporting my design changes based on user feedback gathered from 'Wizard-of-Oz' testing sessions. Version 2 of Sous Chef is a voice-based kitchen device that speaks out one task at a time instead of printing it, working in conjunction with the Sous Chef mobile app. Version 1 continues to follow the theme of printing steps within a recipe. Versions 1 and 2 of the concept are mountable onto kitchen cabinets, taking small kitchen spaces into consideration, where counter space is minimal and precious.

I am looking to turn this class project into a Kickstarter project in the future. I would love to create a minimum viable product, through additional prototyping and real mobile app development.