Smart Oven - Product Value Proposition

Product Value Proposition

During my job pursuit in February 2019, I was challenged by a company to develop an idea for a project. The project theme was interesting and calling for an innovative solution so I’ve accepted the challenge. I’ve spent 2 days throughout the project and here’s my process.

The Challenge - Smart Oven

“Design a first MVP of basic operations around cooking with a smart oven with no physical buttons. Make your own assumptions.”

Understanding the problem

Main Functionalities

There are a lot of options that can be used while cooking. I needed to focus in the most basic ones first.

• Time - take into consideration the users time constrains and the reasons why they’ve bought a smart oven.

• Smart Oven - How can we call it ‘Smart’? What is it so special about it?

• Location - Having access to the users location will allow the system to personalise and assist with the users needs.

• Light - becomes an important element to monitor the cooking.

• Share - In family, everyone likes to share their cooking skills, maybe make an invitation for dinner or even ask opinion about the stage of a meal.

Purpose

There is a trend nowadays, to cook and to take care of the meals presentation. Everyone’s posting on social media their best looking dishes!
People have busy routines but, at the same time, they also spend a lot of time on their phones.
There should be a way that would allow us to track our cooking meals appearance and remotely take control of the oven choices.

Research

Sketches

I couldn’t spend much time with sketches. I had to explore the ideas quickly and take them to the next step.
I’ve found the potential integration of the app with pre-set meals mode and a ´favourites´ section but I had to focus in what is important for the first MVP.

The Product Design

The home screen represents the oven with both tiers. Once the system recognises food inside, the user can turn the lights On and Off and see through a live-camera the inside of the oven.
I did this because I believe that it’s one of the most common actions we all do - peek into the oven to check how the meal appearance looks like. 
Option to share the meal updates with someone.
This was one of the ideas I’ve add from the beginning and It will be useful for cooking learners, couples, and families. If the ‘owner’ of the meal is away and wants someone else to get notifications and take the meal off, for example: kids. 

When selecting one of the tiers, the user is taken to the oven mode options where they can control all the basics settings and monitor the live-mode.
By selecting the live-mode preview, that area should expand so that the user can see the video in full-screen and update the finish time of the cooking.
I feel that I needed more time to explore this screen. The user should be given additional controlling options and the screen area could be optimised.