WEEK 11 – SOCIABLE KITCHEN

Following our discussion in Week 10 regarding the opportunities behind cooking, The Sam Seniors took the weekend to individually brainstorm and validate these opportunities and ideate upon a possible solutions. Many of us interviewed our family members and tested a low fidelity prototype on them. Check our Design Journals out here.

Today, we met to present our key findings and consolidated it! We streamlined our ideas and came up with a few key aspects of the sociable kitchen to narrow our research down to. Up next: ideation based upon these key aspects!

Week 10 – Design Journal

Members of The Sam Seniors looked into how the cooking process itself could be more efficient as well as ways to make cooking a way for the elderly to be more engaged with their community.

Angel Chia

(Recipe Recording and the Cooking Process)

Angel Page 1

Angel Page 2

Glen Choo

(Task Distribution)

Priscilla Teh

(Multitasking and the Cooking Process)

Priscilla Page 1

Priscilla Page 2

Ong Yi Qing

(Image Processing and Ingredient Identification)

Yi Qing Page 1

Yi Qing Page 2

Yi Qing Page 3

Yi Qing Page 4

Urmila Baskaran

(Inventory Management & Cooking Process)

Urmila Page 1

Urmila Page 2

Zaki

(Inventory Management)

Week 9 – Exploring Cooking

Industry Meeting 3

After conducting our design workshop, we immediately followed up with an industry meeting to consolidate our findings with our industry mentor Jane. We explained what we did, the questions we asked and we shared some of the findings and the problems that we found.

Some of the key findings we shared were:

• The elderly have problems bending down and reaching high places
• The 60-70 year olds are relatively comfortable with technology compared to the older generation
• Most do not see chores and the associated tasks (such as standing) as troublesome

We proposed to tackle the problem of the elderly having to bend to perform tasks. Jane, however, urged us to look further into the issues; she had confirmed what we had expected, which was that our findings and identified problems were too narrow.

Up until that point, we had worked with the intention of strictly following Samsung’s product line and choosing to tackle only physical problems as we had assumed that this was the main driving force behind choosing an appliance.

Some of the suggestions we had gotten were to look for more exciting ideas and to look for wants and needs that people may not realise they had. One problem that Jane identified was the preservation of old recipes: when the elderly are no longer able to cook and they do not pass down their recipes, for the family, the recipe is essentially lost. She reassured us that we did not have to be too fixated on Samsung’s current products, but to brainstorm and come up with many different problems before trying to dive deep into just one issue.

Needless to say, it was very liberating for us to know that we could explore in many new directions.

Week 7: Post Mid term review reflections

Last week was the week of our mid-term review. After our first compilation of the slides, we had a meeting with our industry mentors, Ken and Jane. They were really helpful in helping us improve of the presentation.

Firstly, they commented that our level of research was high but questioned our findings and analysis. Next, they also suggested that we should quickly find our focus in the problem statement. This means that we should narrow down the field that we want to work in as soon as possible. Based on past experience, projects usually have an outstanding start but an underwhelming end. We do not want history to repeat itself again.

Hence, we made adjustments to our presentation slides. We ensured that we understood what is the main point or observation after conducting the research. ‘So what?’ was a repeated comment made by Jane and it really made us summarise what we have done and emphasise on what we found out through the survey. As there were insufficient time to further discuss which area to work on, we decided to leave it as broad as possible. However, we knew we have to choose and re scope our problem statement as soon as possible.

After the mid-term review, we continued on discussing issues and opportunities we could get out of cleaning or cooking activities. We also continued to find senior activity centres or organisations that we could work with in the long term. We narrowed down to a few organisations and Touch Community Services were one of the few that replied us. They agreed to letting us use their activity centre as a test bed for our future prototypes as well as interact with the elderly.

Before heading over for the interview on 18 March, the entire group conducted an interview with our own family as a form of research as well as practice. We wanted to find out more about the work cycle of the daily chores by the elderly. Prior to that, our group had decided to eliminate laundry because we agreed that there was not so much room for design and improvement in that field. As such, we looked more at the problems and opportunities that can arise from doing the activities of cooking and cleaning. This blog post of the interview findings show the activity diagrams and places of opportunities each of us thought of when we interviewed our own family members.

Based on this round of interview, we could see various cooking habits among the different age groups. Different age range, 15-25, 26-40, 41-60 and 61-80 years old people, generally work differently from one another. Some of the differences include the level of precision for cooking, the type of food we cook, ingredients used, shopping habits, how we begin preparing a meal and many more others.

On the other hand, cleaning comes to people quite naturally. The use of the Magic Klean mop has really alleviate most people from  the traditional mop and broom. Although some people choose to still use traditional methods such as hand scrubbing to clean their house, most households are satisfied with cleaning using dry mops. The only difference found among the different age group would be the amount of time spent on cleaning and that amounts to the level of cleanliness.

We also observed an intersection between the two tasks, cleaning after cooking. This act could possibly allow us to tie two aspects that were give to us together.

 

Week 6 – Midterm Review

Click to view our team’s Presentation Slides:

Week 6: Interviews with Family Members

 

Results from the interview we had with our own family members: 

Summary of findings:

Cooking Habits

	Ideation and Shopping	Storage	Food Preparation	Cooking	Post-cooking
Student, 20+	Search for recipes online and only buys what is required from the supermarket	Compartmentalise before storing.	Multitasking cleaning up and food preparation	Washes up after every dish, usually one dish at a time.	Washes utensils and cutlery by hand rather than dishwasher
Student, 20+	Does not cook
Working Mum, 30+					Post-cooking cleaning up is a deterrent hence does not cook often
Working Mum, 50+	Buys staples and anything that is on offer at the wet market, ideate based on ingredients bought daily	Compartmentalise before storing to save fridge space. Takes 1-1.5h, most tiring process	Faster process because some preparation done during storage step.	Cooks fast meals. A lot of multi-tasking involved.	Scrub walls and mop floor after cooking.   Washes utensils and cutlery by hand
Mum, 50+					Post-cooking cleaning up is a deterrent hence does not cook often
Mum, 50 +	Tries out recipes, goes to the market to buy what is required				Cleaning up is the most troublesome part of cooking
Mum, 60+			Needs a lot of counter space, alternating between washing up and preparing ingredients	Manage cleaning up and cooking at the same time   Prefer cooking fast meals (30min cooking time)	Cleaning up tedious because many surfaces to clean (hood, wall, table, floor). Wipe walls, mop floor after cooking.   Washes utensils and cutlery by hand
Aunt, 60+	Buys staples and anything that is on offer at the supermarket, ideate based on ingredients bought
Grandma, 70+	Plans meals and buys groceries from the wet market on the day itself		Long process because prepares meals from scratch	Cooks once a week for >6 pax	Scrub walls and mop floor after cooking.
Grandparents, 80+ and 90+	Does not cook

 

 

Cleaning Habits:

	Room Floors	Wall / Windows	Furniture  / Installation	Toilet Surfaces
Student, 20+		Helps clean hard-to-reach areas
Student, 20+	Use MagiClean mop everyday		Uses baby wipes on tables and chairs
Working Mum, 30+	Vacuum and mop 2 times weekly. Tiring because a lot of bending required.
Mum, 50 +	Vacuum and MagiClean mop 2-3 times weekly	Windows most difficult part to clean
Mum, 50+				Scrubs and chemicals
Working Mum, 50+	Use MagiClean  and wet wipes everyday			Scrubs floor with stick brush and water, uses chemicals for toilet bowl daily
Mum, 60+	MagiClean everyday   Brooming and Mopping 2-3 times weekly		Wipe with cloth. Ceiling fans the most troublesome to clean. Vacuum curtains.	Scrubs and Chemicals for floor daily   Chemicals for toilet bowl daily
Aunt, 60+	Sweeps and mpops the house everyday
Grandma, 70+	Sweeps the house and scrubs the floor by hand daily			Scrubs floor 3 times weekly
Grandparents, 80+ and 90+	Does not do chores

 

From meeting minutes:

Angel’s Mom: 50+ years old

Angel’s mom likes to cook. For ideation, she tries recipe. She goes to the market and gets recommendation. One reason why she doesn’t cook is the cleaning process. She sometimes lazy and don’t want to cook cause of this.

Cleaning is okay in general. Vacuum + Magicclean. The most difficult part is outside the windows. Backaches.

 

Pris’ Mom, 60

Food Storage: no issues

Food Preparation – a lot of things to do, insufficient counter space

Cooking – alright

Post-cooking is the worst. the hood gets oily. wall gets oily. space constraint. so many things to clean.

Interesting thing – for toilets it’s not difficult to clean, it’s just something people don’t like.

rooms wise – ceiling fan and curtain

Floor – only mop 2/3 times a week

As she gets older, she’ll get lazy to cook but if need to cook for family, she’ll just cook loh.

Cleaning – dealing with slippery floors.

 

Serena, 30+

Cleaning: uses vacuum Cleaners + mop

She vacuums twice a day over the weekend.

She needs to bend down a lot while vacuuming. A lot of bending done in the process.

She doesn’t cook because she doesn’t like the post-cooking process.

 

YQ, 22

Cooking: Look for recipes online. Check what is needed and go for grocery shopping. YQ unpacks the grocery, she doesn’t know what needs to be left outside and what needs to be put inside.

Food preparation is quite fun. Defrosting food, preparing and cutting things.

Cooking: we always start with soup, it requires a lot of multitasking (yq cannot). As she cooks, YQ washes. Washing is therapeutic to her.

Cleaning:

YQ sweeps the hair on the floor (by hand) and then she magic cleans the floor.

YQ’s Mom, 50+

She works from Mon – Sat

She goes to the wet market. She looks for what’s the cheapest and she’ll buy. Usually buys staples.

She preps the vegetables into containers. Saves space in the fridge. She takes 1 – 1.5 hrs. Kitchen has not fan. That’s the most tiring for her.

She cooks fast meals. She asks for suggestions then she’ll get inspiration from them and she cooks. She multi tasks alot.

YQ’s mom magic cleans everyday. They hire external help on weekends.

Washing toilet – she just scrubs.

 

YQ’s Ahma, 74

She cooks on Saturday for >6 people.

She has a set of recipes in her mind.

She goes for grocery shopping, come back and start cooking.

If lunch is served at 1, she starts cooking at 10!! Alot of prep.

Kitchen space is alot. Ahgong prepares food on the floor.

She resists help. Her seasoning is based upon feeling.

Cleaning:

Ahma sweeps the whole house the entire day.

Hand scrub the floor.

Throughout the day, if they see stains or hair, they’ll clean mid day.

General toilet is washed three times a week. Sit on the stool and still scrub.

 

Glen, 24

His house doesn’t really clean. Glen and his bro cleans the house.

 

Glen’s mom, 51

Sometimes cleans the toilet. She hand cleans the whole toilet.

Doesn’t cook because cleaning is difficult.

 

Glen’s grandparents, 86 & 91 

Too old to do chores. Grandmother stopped cooking cause knees hurt.

 

Glen’s aunt, 63

Does the chores, they’re elderly but do not live like elderly
Will go to the market/supermarket, she buys stuff. And she likes to do her own recipes.

Cleaning: broom + mop

 

Week 4 – Design for Elderly

Members of The Sam Seniors have been tasked to give their own insights on the various factors to consider while designing for the elderly. They were to also suggest ways to test and evaluate how well the project performs with respect to this design dimension. Here’s each member’s take on Design for Elderly!

 

Angel Chia – Page 1

Angel Chia – Page 2

Angel Chia

Glen Choo

Priscilla Teh

Ong Yi Qing

Urmila Baskaran

Zaki

Week 4: Report on Survey @ Bedok

Courts Undercover Mission

After completing our survey around Bedok MRT area, we went over to Courts at Tampines to do a ‘Samsung product recee’. The purpose of this visit was to understand better on the type of products that Samsung has for the general consumer market as well as to put ourselves into the shoes of the buyer to see what will be recommended by the sales person to us. Angel and Zaki were assigned to the kitchen appliances section while Urmila and Priscilla headed for the cleaning department. Yi Qing went over to the washing department.

One of the big things that stood out from this trip was finding out that from the consumers’ point of view, Samsung is the top brand to go to for the kitchen appliances. The sales person had repeatedly mentioned that Samsung has the brand name to bank on and the advanced technologies implemented in their products to continue staying ahead of its competitors. Consumers will generally turn to Samsung products as their products are more reliable compared to other brands. At the moment, the latest technology for the refrigerators are the internal air cooling system that stays in the fridge even while the door is open. This technology can only be found in Samsung line of fridges.

Below are the summary of findings from the Courts Undercover Mission:

Cooking

• Samsung produces stoves but these aren’t sold in Courts (maybe not targeted to average consumer)
• Ample counter space is preferred.
• Ease of turning knob when turning on stoves seem to be a concern for elderly.
• Induction stoves not used in Singapore hdb due to power regulations.
• Latest technology in fridges – air circulation stays inside the fridge and does not escape.
• Samsung fridges sell the best among consumers (wide range of fridges available & branding)
• People generally use the gas stove for most of their cooking. Fully automated things may not be preferred when it comes to cooking.
• Preparation of food takes very long for older people, one aspect of cooking that needs more tech to help the elderly (comment from 1 person)
• Accessibility of items in the fridge (bottom shelf) difficult for elderly, so placing more used items at upper shelves for easy access

Cleaning

• Some people think vacuum cleaners only for homes with carpets.
• Older people less able to use vacuum cleaners because they are heavy.
• Robotic mops and vacuum cleaners provide acceptable cleanliness if they are used everyday.
• Some older people prefer to use their bare hands for cleaning (meaning to use a cloth to scrub the floors)
• One of the major or more troublesome areas for cleaning will be toilet as well as windows and walls.
• For vacuum cleaners, it is tougher to clean the carpet as it does not glide as easily. Robotic vacuum cleaners will tend to have blind spots and miss certain areas.

Washing

• People think front load machines washes cleaner (in general younger + elderly)
• Front load must bend thus making it more strenuous.
• Wash clothes by hand because of material, colour and habit/not a lot to wash.
• Large buttons and single-function controls are more intuitive for elderly (salesperson – but we should take into account that the future elderly would be used to touch screens)
• Heated washing machines being marketed in Courts (hot water is associated with cleanliness.
• Dryers are not very popular in Singapore.
• Many families still use bamboo poles to hang dry and younger people think that would be a problem for them in the future.