Prime Stein

Water Bottle Design

About

This week was our first week on location at Prime Digital Academy. Our project this week was to create a water bottle that fit the needs of full stack development students here at Prime. The goal was to conduct and practice various forms of core UX research methods and create a prototype that we could pitch to the potential buyers at the end of the week

The Challenge

Full stack development students are hard working and busy, and they need a waterbottle that can fit seemlessly in their lifestyle. The challenge was to design a unique yet usable product that they would enjoy. 

The Process

Heuristic Analysis

We first learned and tackled heuristic analysis. We observed existing water bottles and evaluated them based on Nielsen's heuristics. We analyzed and reported the findings in a report; it was determined that safely opening, transporting, and cleaning the water bottle were critical issues. 

Fly on the Wall Observation

It was time to conduct the "fly on the wall" method. I observe the full stack students by watching them in their natural work environment (i.e. at their desk, in lecture, and other areas within the Prime Academy building). This method was certainly enlightening. The section below summarizes my findings. 

Design Concepts

From this information, I created three water bottle concepts that would accommodate these student's lifestyle. 

Prototyping 

Our class held a critique session, and  I re-evaluated my design. I decided to build a prototype based on "The Prime Stein" and "Bottle of Inspiration" concepts. Next, we headed to Leonardo's Basement to build our prototypes. It was a challenge to build our prototypes with strict time and material constraints; however we learned a lot about improvising and working with limited resources.

Usability Test 

Now that we had a prototype, it was time to test it. I asked five full stack  students to participate in a usability test during their lunch break. Each interview/test lasted around ten minutes.

I gathered my results and analyzed the most important features to re-design in my prototype.  The following issues were determined as the most critical: 

1. Overall dimensions: the prototype was too wide and clunky.
2. Users were not confident about the connection between the top and bottom storage unit. 
3. There was no package documentation regarding usability and versatility. 

From this information, I proposed the following re-design: 

Presentation

We gave a presentation to pitch our final product. 

Future Considerations and Conclusion

Finally, we were tasked with creating a plan if our plan was chosen by our client.  Click below to see my plan for moving this concept forward into a final prototype.