Prototyping

I wanted to make sure that I had a good idea of the general shape of my prototype and slowly get more detailed with it, as I made stylistic adjustments accordingly. My first prototype was a very rudimentary design mainly for me to see what the approximate figure would look like in the real world.

Pictured is the first 3D prototype sketch.

Pictured is the 3D printed result of the initial sketch.

After looking at this prototype, I noticed that the edges of the sides were too rough and sharp, which went against OXO’s design philosophy. I knew that I generally wanted the buttons and screen to be inlaid, thus making the screwdriver not a perfect cylinder for the handle portion. For my second attempt, I rectified this problem by actually adding the buttons and smoothing out the sides.

Pictured is the second 3D prototype sketch.

Pictured is the 3D printed result of the second sketch.

This iteration is much closer to what I envisioned. However, it was lacking in providing the user a somewhat accurate experience of whait would be like to hold this object in hand. Thus, I decided to make the final iteration of this prototype handmade, allowing me to add weight and give different textures to the prototype, which is not possible when 3D printing it.

Pictured is the final physical prototype of the OXO screwdriver.

This is a real life demo of the prototype.

Analysis

This prototype, while imperfect, did have some things going for it. After conducting some user testing, it was clear that the premise and general design were intuitive and reasonably discoverable. For example, the up and down arrows and middle button were easily distinguishable as speed and pause/go button, respectively. Also, users responded well to the placement of the buttons and screen. Furthermore, users also found the product to be in line with OXO's design language. However, there were some aspects that did not work very well or were unclear.

First, the process I initially had in mind for changing each bit was not clear. I did not think entirely through the process and take into account what the screwdriver would do while the user was making a change to the bit they were using. If I were to do this again, I probably would make a separate interface that pops up when the user was changing bits and make the user confirm their selection via the central circular button. 

Second, the toggle mechanism I made on my low fidelity prototypes were wonky and didn’t make a ton of sense, mainly due to its size. Future iterations of this device would include a totally redesigned toggle mechanism, or a significantly smaller one.

The last piece of critical feedback I received pertained to the screwed and unscrewed counts. My user wanted to be able to reset those two counts, which is something that my model did not allow. While this feedback is specific for this individual task, I would add more features that the screen could provide, such as user profiles.