At a glance
This classroom project focuses on identifying pain points in existing induction cooktop designs and reimagining a user-friendly, efficient, and intuitive interface. The goal was to create a minimalistic yet powerful solution that ensures effortless cooking while enabling users to feel confident and in control. This individual project, completed within 10 days, delivers a clean, functional design tailored to diverse user needs.
How might we create a minimalistic and powerful induction cooktop interface to provide an effortless experience and enable users to feel confident and in control?
Induction cooktop users face usability, safety, and feedback issues due to cluttered interfaces, insufficient visual indicators, and unclear system responses. Key challenges include:
Non-intuitive Navigation: Causes cognitive overload, especially for older and novice users.
Lack of Feedback: Insufficient indicators for heating levels, temperature changes, and error states.
Safety Risks: Missing child locks, poor vessel detection, and unclear risk alerts.
Redesigning the interface is essential to improve clarity, enhance safety features, and provide a seamless user experience.
Design brief
The project aims to redesign the induction cooktop interface by addressing usability issues, feedback limitations, and safety concerns. By understanding the needs of diverse users, novices, experienced cooks, and elderly individuals- the redesign focuses on simplifying navigation, integrating visual/audio feedback, and adding essential safety features. The result is an intuitive, efficient, and safe cooking experience.
Research and design methodology
A goal-directed model guided the process through six stages: research, modeling, requirements, framework, refinement, and support. The research included:
Understanding existing induction cooktops, market trends, and unique features.
Studying Indian cooking habits, behaviors, and utensil usage, which revealed the need for compatibility with traditional cookware and heat control precision.
Competitor study
Research insights
1. Induction Cooktop Issues:
Food spillage, overheating risks, and lack of post-cooking heat indicators.
Limited compatibility with traditional cookware like kadai and woks.
Absence of vessel size guides, emergency signals, and clear visual feedback.
2. Interface Pain Points:
Cluttered layouts, technical jargon, and multiple clicks causing cognitive overload.
Insufficient real-time feedback on heating levels, temperature, and vessel detection.
Safety gaps like missing child locks, undefined button states, and confusing alerts.
3. Behavioral & Cooking Habits:
Indian cooking emphasizes precise heat control, visual flame feedback, and tools like cooker whistles for timing.
Traditional utensils and frequent stirring demand better surface adaptability and heat feedback mechanisms.
Contextual inquiry
Using Flow Models and Sequence Models, I mapped user interactions and workflows to identify inefficiencies and pain points.
The Flow Model revealed communication gaps and task ownership during cooking.
The Sequence Model highlighted interruptions and opportunities to simplify step-by-step actions.
Ideation
The redesigned cooktop focuses on usability, efficiency, and safety. Key features include:
Simplified Controls: Prioritized layout with spin buttons for quick timer adjustments.
Enhanced Feedback: Visual heat gradients (blue → yellow → orange) and multi-sensory cues like audio beeps and haptic vibrations.
Convenience Features: Keep Warm mode, Whistle Preset, and error alerts for a seamless experience.
Ergonomic Design: A tilted control panel, compact form factor, and a detachable magnetic knob for ease of use and maintenance.
With the revised design the number of clicks will reduce from 16 to 9
With the revised design, the number of clicks has been reduced from 16 to 9, streamlining user interaction and improving efficiency.
Sketches
I explored multiple layout and interface ideas through sketches, focusing on shape, ergonomics, and usability. From this, I developed two interface concepts and conducted formative testing with 5 users. Concept 2 was chosen by most participants, providing a foundation for wireframe development.
Final wireframe
I translated my ideas into a medium-fidelity wireframe to demonstrate the design solution. This version effectively meets user needs with a clean, intuitive, and functional layout that simplifies navigation and enhances usability.
In the final wireframe, a knob has been introduced, similar to a gas stove, for intuitive temperature control. A gradient color change provides visual feedback as the temperature increases.
Users can easily select cooking modes with the help of clear icons and text, ensuring better visual understanding. Additionally, a timer can be set, and once cooking is complete, the cooktop automatically transitions into a 'Keep Warm' mode. In case of errors, such as low voltage, the system displays the issue along with guidance to resolve it, enhancing user clarity and safety.
Future scope
In the future, the induction cooktop could feature automatic vessel detection and adaptive surface adjustment. Upon placing a vessel and activating the cooktop, the system would detect the vessel's size and shape, lowering the cooking surface to securely fit the pan and prevent sliding. This functionality would leverage concentric copper coils beneath the surface, designed in a stair-like movable structure, ensuring seamless compatibility with pans of all sizes and shapes.
