HCI Final Report CookTool – The smart kitchen 12/3/2010 University of Oslo Gautier DOUBLET – ghdouble Marine MATHIEU - mgmathie

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Summary I. Introduction – Problem space .....................................................................................................3

II. Agree on our goals (usability, experience and others)..................................................................4

III. State of the art ........................................................................................................................4

IV. Product specifications .............................................................................................................7

V. Data collection and analysis ........................................................................................................8

VI. Evaluation of our idea ........................................................................................................... 11

VII. Alternatives & prototypes ..................................................................................................... 12

1. Multitouch interface ............................................................................................................. 12

2. Computer interface ............................................................................................................... 12

3. Vocal interface ...................................................................................................................... 13

VIII. Evaluation of the prototypes and final decision ..................................................................... 13

Workshop and scenarii .................................................................................................................. 14

Usability testing and DECIDE framework ....................................................................................... 15

Final design ................................................................................................................................... 16

IX. Future work and improvements ............................................................................................ 21

X. Literature collection and references .......................................................................................... 21

XI. Annex 1 – Online survey ........................................................................................................ 22

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I. Introduction – Problem space

The kitchen has always been a room of sharing and with the actual concerns about the healthy

impact of food in our everyday life, people tend to use more and more their kitchen to cook by

themselves. While the living room seems to be more “connected” than the others rooms (presence

of a computer, TV connected to Internet, digital photo frame...), the kitchen is not yet touched by

technology. Some ideas occur, obviously, such as eco-friendly dishwasher or fridge, but we still not

see the advance of technology there.

It’s quite easy to use kitchen equipment’s nowadays. But we assume from our experience and

from feedbacks from people we asked in an internet survey and during our workshop, they tend to

ask for technology unknowingly. Indeed, as we take as an assumption that our target users group

uses a computer every day for almost everything, they would probably think that it’s normal to have

technology in their kitchen, but more for fun than really helpful in their cooking tasks. With the

development of the computers and the reduction of the costs, some people are putting a netbook in

their kitchen so that they can watch TV as they cook or have a look at a recipe.

But is there a way to make a kind of “smart” kitchen?

Our project’s aim is to bring technology to the kitchen and to make it usable and helpful for the

most. We want to create something that makes your cooking experience easier and safer besides

making it funnier. In fact, we will focus on the entire set “cooking plates-oven-microwave-extractor

hood”. This is actually one of the places where we could put some multi-touch device in order to

control it. Currently, it’s just a simple button or a knob, without any visual feedback. It’s not user-

friendly (you have to focus on it to be sure it’s on - or off), it’s small, and it could be easily reached by

a child. As security is a great concern when you have kids, people tend to secure their domestic

products. But, as we said before, the kitchen control panel is quite easily accessible for a child.

Nevertheless, this kind of system must not be too protected because you may let your friends or

family cooking with you without recording their voice or their hand size, that’s why we have thought

twice about our security concept and we want to offer the perfect balance between security and

entertainment.

So, is there a way to mix security and technology and to install it in a kitchen? If so, how is it possible?

How could we make it instinctive and safe?

We came to all of these observations after having some troubles of cooking management

ourselves. In our campus in Kringsjå, we have to share a common kitchen. It happened that

sometimes we forgot the oven or others people let the pans on after use. So we started thinking of a

better kitchen and wondering what could help people to have a fulfilling experience in their kitchen.

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II. Agree on our goals (usability, experience and others)

In order to find the users groups, we have based our users search on finding the users of a

kitchen, but also the users of technology and people who need more efficiency because they don’t

have the time to spend hours for cooking. So, finally we have reduced our target to one main group

we would like to focus on:

Dynamic adults from 20 to 30 years old, men and women, who have their personal kitchen at

home, who spend enough time in the kitchen to deserve a better experience than the

extractor hood noise or the micro-wave ringing.

We assume that this kind of users already have an experience in using technology like

smartphones or computers in their everyday life. They also probably like listening to music, hearing

the news, finding a new recipe and piloting all kitchen equipments like a conductor during a great

concert.

As everyday users of technology and safety-concerned persons, users need the product to meet

these requirements:

Easy to use, easy to remember,

Connectivity,

Not usable by kids,

At-a-glance manageable.

III. State of the art

The smart kitchen is not yet really spread in people’s mind but some have already thought of

that and they have tried to create a home-made product (DIY - Do It Yourself) or to provide a kind of

professional design that may be used to build a real product later.

We’ve based some of this review on “Smart home hacks” by Gordon Meyer (Chapter. Kitchen and

Bath)

Let’s see some examples of people’s work about the idea of a smart kitchen and how well the

others projects meet our users’ needs.

DIY

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Few people feel this need to bring technology and modern entertainment in the kitchen so they

tried to create it. It can be useful to find recipe or to watch TV but it’s absolutely not integrated in the

kitchen and it is not adapted to it. Worse, it can distract you while you are using the other

equipment’s and this can be very dangerous.

Commercial and conceptual smart fridges

The fridge is for now the only equipment in the kitchen in

which people started to integrate technology. And it’s

quite limited. The link between food inside and the

screen is not yet a reality, so it probably cannot do much

more things than DIY solutions.

Commercial products

QOOQ tablet (http://www.redferret.net/?p=16792) iCEBOX (http://www.appliancist.com/accessories/beyond-smart-kitchen-icebox.html)

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Design concepts

The Yanko Design website (yankodesign.com) publishes every day imaginary designs about

object of everyday life and they created a concept of a multi-touch cook-top.

This idea is very close to the concept we’d like to explore and nothing so-much “technologic” exists in

the kitchen for now. It is really the first smart cook-top idea we’ve seen. And while entertaining

multi-touch devices have started to flood the market, it is strange that this kind of idea are not

developed much far than just a design.

Eco-Intelligent Kitchen

(http://trendsupdates.com/eco-intelligent-kitchen-is-

eco-riendly-and-includes-garden/)

The smart house is growing. We care about controlling heating, air conditioned, lights and

shutters thanks to the use of technology, but nothing is really developed for the kitchen

environment. So we are going to deal with a quite new concept.

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IV. Product specifications

So, to match these needs, we have chosen the most important characteristics our product must

have:

Tablet, integrable into a kitchen near the cooking plates.

Small, around the size of an adult stretched hand, so that it is easily integrable.

Connected to Internet, with a web interface and synchronized to a smartphone so that you

can pre-heat the oven or make sure everything’s fine.

Capacitive screen technology, which reacts very well and only to human contact (thanks to

the electricity produced by your body), and not to kitchen accessories.

Security system by hand size recognition to prevent its use by children; possibility to unlock it

remotely with the web interface or the smartphone interface.

Connected to the cooking plates, the microwave oven, the oven and the extraction hood

(number of them is manageable); and possibility to add functionalities like coffee-maker

timer.

Use of icons, so it’s visual and you can see quite fast if something is on.

Multi-tasks.

Virtual keyboard, to annotate and write recipes; stylus (a kind of pen without ink made for

writing on touch-based screen) would be the best, but stylus on capacitive screens are not

satisfying now (you can’t write well with them).

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V. Data collection and analysis

In order to collect data from users and to check if our ideas are appreciated, we made an online

survey we promoted via our blog, Facebook and Twitter. We also wanted to have some feedbacks

and suggestions from people, because we might not have thought of everything.

17 people answered our questionnaire and from the results of the age question they are almost

all in our target group. You may find questions with a variable number of answers but it is due to the

fact that some questions are not mandatory, so less people could have answered, and some

questions are multiple-choices questions, so the total is bigger than our total number of people who

have participated.

There were few open questions but none or very few people answered. That’s why these

questions are almost not in this result analysis.

If you answer “other” to the previous question, what do you do? Talk on the phone

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Maybe we should have asked the oven question in a different way like “Would like to be able

to switch on and off your oven with your smartphones?”, we might got different results, but these

results are interesting because here we are providing two functionalities that are not so different

because both can be seen as very convenient. But if you look at the result, the first one is rejected by

people whereas the other one is approved with a huge majority. So we have looked to the

differences and it appears that the first one is “active”, you turn something on which is going to start

running with you, contrary to the other one, which is “passive”, you just have access to some

information but you control everything. So we can deduce that people let the technology helping

them but they absolutely want to keep control over things.

Besides, this result (1 is for “not concerned by

security” and 5 is for “very concerned by security”)

shows that people are heavily concerned with safety.

It explains the previous results which are that they

don’t want to let a computer to manage dangerous

things as a oven without controlling it.

Here we can see that the results are

distributed between the three answers so,

as it is never possible to make everyone

happy, we deduced that there is no big

mistake.

Here we have a kind of confirmation of our

deduction because we see that most of the people

like what we have planed, even if they don’t use all

of them every day.

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People all agree to say that nowadays smartphones synchronization is at least useful, or else

essential. A huge majority finally feels that bringing technology in the kitchen would make their

cooking experience nicer.

VI. Evaluation of our idea

The data collected reveal a great interest in this kind of kitchen control panel because, as we had

assumed, many people used to do a lot of things while they are cooking. So that, by making their

activities easier, it would make their cooking experience better and safer.

Very few people want less functionality and some want more. But as it was an Internet

questionnaire that we’ve promoted and many of people who answered were our friends, so they are

like us very interested in new technologies, so we can deduce that the average people get what they

want with the functionalities we’ve chosen.

People would love a connected kitchen and some applications as the synchronization of their

cooking list on their smartphone had a great success. Nevertheless, it appears that even if computers

make their life better, people don’t have an entire trust about them, so they suggest us to think of

integrating a manual command that can supply the computer if bugs occur or in case of emergency.

People like almost all the prototype we planned, except one or two things, so we can say that we

have planned quite well the needs of users, and we are going to improve it by listening to users’

recommendations to make a prototype that really meets users’ expectations.

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VII. Alternatives & prototypes

1. Multitouch interface

This interface is very similar to a smartphone one so very intuitive and as we said earlier we

assume that people in our target group already know how to use it. The menus are accessible directly

in the first page and multimedia functionalities easily accessible in another interface that you can

slide down and up to open and hide it. In the bottom you have a timer zone where all your timers are

visible at any time. For each device (oven, micro wave…) you can set its power, its timer and if

necessary its mode.

Concerning multimedia functionalities that you have by sliding down the arrow at the top of the

screen, you’ll have access to the net via a web browser, to Youtube, music streaming and radio, your

notes, you photos to use it as a digital photo frame and internet TV. Security is performed via hand-

size recognition for which you can choose the size of the hand and it is able only for switching on the

oven and the pans.

All these functionalities are available in the other prototypes but they are organized in a

different way.

2. Computer interface

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It allows users to not make any changes in their kitchen, but provide distance-management

thanks to domotic plugs. The security is performed via password. You access to the different

functionalities via a general menu and each functionality has its own window. You have to use the

track pad to move the mouse and switch between the different windows, and the keyboard to write

down notes.

3. Vocal interface

If you have dirty hands or you are holding something you can control your kitchen with your voice.

You switch between the different screens by vocal command or with little buttons. The security is

performed via vocal recognition. Each screen represents a different functionality.

VIII. Evaluation of the prototypes and final decision

The computer interface needs a computer in the kitchen and the use of clean and precise hands.

To be efficient you’ll need 2 hands to type on the keyboard and go and find your windows with the

touch pad is not very quick and convenient.

The vocal interface can be annoying by speaking each time you should be warned of something

(hot oven, end of cooking time, etc.). You also need to memorize all the vocal commands used in the

interface management. Besides you have to record the voice of every people who may you the

kitchen.

Whereas the multitouch interface is efficient, you only need one hand to use it. The hand-size

recognition allows you to register a minimum size to prevent kids from using dangerous materials but

not every hand in the family. You can easily switch between fun and cooking functionalities. The

interface is very simple and each functionality is accessible in the first page. So with one click you get

into its parameters and with another click to go back.

That’s why we have chosen to go on working with the multitouch interface because it is well

adapted to an efficient cooking use. But, according to suggestions we had in our survey, we plan to

integrate very few vocal commands as an alternative if you can’t use your hands.

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Workshop and scenarii

In order to check the usability of our final prototype we chose to create two different

scenarii, that we submitted to our workshop group composed of three people of about 22 years old

we know from sharing campus building and lessons at the UiO. They told us pros and cons of each.

The workshop lasted 30 minutes.

1. Cooking alone

One person is in her room, she starts thinking about making dinner because she’s hungry. She

goes in her kitchen to see what kind of food she has, switches on her CookTool control panel to

find a recipe in her past notes or on the internet, and then switches on the oven. She starts on

the CookTool panel what she was doing in her room before being hungry (watch a movie, read

the news, listen to music…) and starts cooking something in the pans. When the oven is hot she

put some food in it while watching videos or listening to music and she can eat when everything

is ready.

Pros

To have the choice to stay in the kitchen and having fun (watch videos, listen to music, read

the news…) or go back in her room and be warned thanks to the smartphone applications or

the CookTool web interface when something is ready in the kitchen.

It avoids multiple back and forth between the kitchen and her room where there are

internet, the music…

Access to old favorite recipes and her notes.

Cons

The starting time is greater than just a oven starting time.

CookTool installation cost is a bit expansive (X10 technology and the tablet)

2. Cooking with family

One person has invited her sister with her husband and their child at home to have dinner

together. The sister has brought all the food, she just has to reheat it. She starts the different

timers for each functionality she need (oven, 2 pans, micro-wave) then the family sits around the

table and starts discussing. Sometimes she just has to check if everything is fine. They talk about

the news, they wonder who has discovered this great thing and they check directly in the kitchen

on internet thanks to the CookTool control panel. The sister shows their last holidays pictures she

had put in an USB key. The kid starts playing with the CookTool device and enjoys it but nobody

has to worry about it because he cannot switch on dangerous devices (oven and pans) on his

own but he can stop it if overflows or it burns. Timers are over and the family starts eating while

listening the last sister’s favorite song.

Pros

It keeps all the family together by providing lots of functionalities in addition to cooking.

6 different timers management (4 pans, 1 oven and 1 micro-wave)

Everybody wants to play with the new kitchen control panel

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Cons

The starting time is greater than just an oven starting time.

CookTool installation cost is a bit expansive (X10 technology and the tablet)

Everybody wants to play with the new kitchen control panel

Usability testing and DECIDE framework

We chose to use Usability Testing as our data evaluation method because we got data from

asking the users in our internet survey, from observing them in our immediate environment and then

we created scenario and we asked again in our workshop users to imagine themselves testing our

device with a paper prototype in such environment and to comment this use. We also evaluated user

satisfaction about our product both in the online survey and during the workshop, and we left users

to tell us what they want in open questions.

Here is the summary of our clues for the DECIDE framework:

• Goals: to check if our ideas are appreciated and to have some feedbacks and suggestions

from people for a better design. We are at the prototyping level so the idea of the project

was already clear and the goal was to adapt the prototype to our target user group by

improving the usability of the existing prototype.

• Questions: in our survey we chose the more important questions and choices we had to

make. You can find the whole survey in Annex 1.

• Evaluation approach: usability testing; Methods: online survey, observation and workshop.

• Practical issues: to reach the more people as possible for the survey we chose to publish it on

line but we couldn’t be sure to reach our target users. For the workshop we needed to meet

people so we ask our colleagues who are in our target users. Finally, we couldn’t provide a

real functional prototype so we made one on paper.

• Ethical issues: we explained quite well the context of our study at the beginning of our

survey. The private questions were not mandatory and answers were anonymous (except

when our friends told us proudly that they answered to our survey!).

• Evaluation and analyze of the data: we made pie charts and bar charts to have a good idea

of the results of our survey and we studied the pros and the cons for each scenario we

created. We have also noticed that the fact that most people who answered were friends of

us, maybe it would have influence a little the results.

Besides, after the midterm-presentation, several comments have been made to our project.

Every comment has been studied, and regarded to these comments and our workshop we’ve

decided to include some of them that we thought relevant in our final design.

Note to the reader’s attention: this report was finished when we were told to focus on the evaluation

methods, so we add this summary that clearly shows the relation between our actions and the

methodology but ideally this framework should have been the main frame for this report.

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Final design

First of all, it appears that the security should only be there when the user wants to switch on

the cooking plates, or the oven. Indeed, it could be interesting, even for kids, to be able to switch on

the TV, Youtube or the radio. Like that, they would still be able to “play” with the system without

interacting with something dangerous. As Paul Lukas says in its article “kitchen of tomorrow”

(http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/102/next-kitchen.html), “no matter what technology we

can create, its first goal is to persevere the domestic values”, we should make sure that the kitchen

helps to bring the family together, not splitting it apart. Regarding to the micro-wave oven, it is an

often used device for young teenagers (to warm milk, or soup…), and it is not so dangerous so we’ve

decided not to secure it. We decided also to modify the security interaction: you now need to switch

on the device using the slider, and you’ll be asked to put your hand on the screen so that it will check

its size. So when you switch off something, you’ll not be asked to unlock the system.

In order to keep some visual consistency in our project, we’d also keep a different color for each

single device. So you’d be able to see quite fast on which device you are and what you’re doing.

Secondly, as the timers are not necessary for the extraction hood, we’ve decided to remove it

from the bottom bar. It will be replaced by a pen icon, which will allow you to take quick notes or

create a shopping list easily. We’ve also decided to review the entire disposition of the icons. The

layout will stay quite similar, but now you’ll get the same disposition for each device menu. It will be

composed by a slide switch (to switch on or off) on the top left side, then a “mode selector wheel” on

the top right side, quite similar to the one you can find on the iPhone to change the time. On the

bottom, you’ll have a slider on the left to modify the power of the device, and on the right a time

selector wheel.

We’ve also made some modifications to the behavior of the system. Indeed, you won’t have to

put a time for the extracting hood, it will now be synchronized with the bigger timer of the cooking

plates. It will also automatically shut down when the cooking plates timer is over. The lamp will also

be on automatically.

In order to allow a quick view of the remaining time for each cooking plates, the smallest one

will always be shown in the bottom bar, and if you go into the cooking plates menu you’ll see the

remaining time for each one inside each circle. You’ll also be able to see the state of each device in

the “home” menu.

The central “power icon” allows the user to switch off all the devices at one time in the first

screen. And the central “home icon” allows the user to go back to the first screen.

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Let’s see our final design of the different screens of the device.

Here is the main screen:

The left screen is the first screen you’ll see, without any running device. The right screen shows

which devices are on (here, all), and the remaining time and the mode if there is one for each one.

Let’s now see the oven panel:

This panel allows you to control the oven.

Once you’ve toggled the switch to on, you’ll

get the security panel (next picture).

You can also change the mode with the wheel

on the top right, the power with the slide on

the bottom left and the timer with the

wheels on the bottom right.

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This is the security panel you’re lead to once

you’ve chosen to switch on the oven or the

cooking plates. This asks you to put your hand

here, so that it could check the size of it, and

unlock it only if it’s an adult size.

We find this system more convenient than a

pin code because you don’t have to really focus

on it to unlock it, it’s quicker and if you have

guests, they’re still able to use your kitchen.

This screen is the extracting hood management panel. This, as the other, allows you to manage the

extracting hood with some simple manipulations. You don’t need to unlock the system to manage it.

There’s no timer, but it is related with the cooking plates timer (the longest one), so that it

automatically shuts down when no cooking plates are one; and you can still put it on if you need so.

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Finally, here are the management panels of the cooking plates and the micro-wave oven.

They are similar to the other one. For the cooking plates, you can see that the remaining time for

each plate is written inside the circle representing the plate.

Finally, let’s see the screens while you use the multimedia options.

Here is what is happening when you drag

down the arrow on the top of the screen.

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You’ll get this screen:

This screen allows you to search over the Internet, use web radios, web TV and see your notes. These

notes could be recipes or a TO-DO list for example. You can move up or down by dragging the screen,

and see your pictures and go to YouTube.

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IX. Future work and improvements

At the end of this project, our prototype is quite well defined and has its definitive design. For

now it is a web application but it needs to be a real application, adapted to a tablet, in order to really

achieve its objectives and to be perfectly integrated in the kitchen. Of course the development of the

application should be well adapted to the tablet operating system.

The Android application is already partly functional but it needs to be finished by adding the clock

mechanism. And it would be great to have a workshop with users to test its usability and to get

people’s advice for the final design.

The website interface is also almost finished as a prototype. The design is done but all the

mechanisms still have to be implemented like the timers, the user login, the parameters settings, and

so on.

Finally, to have a fully functional project, all the data and applications should be connected to a

central server to be synchronized with each other.

X. Literature collection and references Sociable Kitchen: Interactive Recipe System in Kitchen Island (International Journal of Smart Home Vol.3, No.2, April, 2009) http://www.sersc.org/journals/IJSH/vol3_no2_2009/3.pdf

Touch Gesture Reference Guide by LukeW http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1071

Smart home hacks by Gordon Meyer Chap. Kitchen and Bath http://books.google.com/books?id=fQAP70CmY-

0C&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr#v=onepage&q&f=false

Today's "Kitchen of Tomorrow" by Paul Lukas http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/102/next-kitchen.html

Maison A studio B (a showroom house in Paris) http://www.avivre.net/maisonAstudioB/diapoCuis.shtml http://www.avivre.net/maisonAstudioB/images/presseweb/home.pdf

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XI. Annex 1 – Online survey

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