Lights provide contextual suggestions of operational status.

Description

User-centered dishwasher designed to address limited mobility and create visual dialogues.

Overview

Most appliances today tend to be overly complex. They are plagued by convoluted interfaces, intimidating manuals, and an overall disconnect between user and machine. This General Electric-sponsored group project focused on addressing these concerns, thus creating a more user-centric appliance.

Our group began by performing link and problem analyses on existing appliances. From the research, we graphed inter/intraset matrices to visually document our objectives, leading into the extraction of our design criteria. The product line had to: have a sensible interface, be ergonomic, initiate a dialogue, accommodate those with limited mobility, and be attractive to a wide range of people.

The final concept used simple forms to remain versatile. The dialogue between user and machine was created through light-assisted guidance and operational status indicators. The concept also featured rising, removable bins to decrease physical demands.

The bottom bin rises to waist-level, minimizing strain on the user.

The interface uses light as a visual escort through its simplified operation.

Sketches explored means of establishing a dialogue between user and machine.