This project's aim is to develop a ceramic cooktop for the premier market
suitable to be sold in Europe, America, Asia and Australia. The final
concept is a ceramic cooktop that with as high profit margin as possible
for Electrolux also appeals the most for high-end consumers from all over
the world.
Today ceramic cooktops from different producers have aesthetics very
similar to each other and it is hard to differentiate one brand from
another. Therefore by designing a cooktop that stands out from the rest,
Electrolux's aim to get in to the premier segment of the market and to
profile itself there, would be possible to reach. A problem that soon was
noticed was that the interface of cooktops often is very hard to understand
and that the control panel technique can be experienced as unreliable. So,
emphasis was, besides making an original design, also laid on making the
cooktop as user friendly as possible.
Facts and information about components were thoroughly read to get a good
understanding of the product. Theory about how to make a proper
benchmarking and also theories about symbols and gestalts were studied.
Following and parallel to this, a systematic development work was conducted
by further investigating the actual problem and customer needs. Kitchen
standards all over the world were mapped to find out what dimensions the
cooktop should have. The result of this was the benchmark form and the
product specification.
The benchmarking was then carried out by comparing cooktops made both by
Electrolux and other producers. By following the benchmark form to grade
each cooktop, conclusions about the design were made. User tests on the
cooktops gave additional information about usability and interface issues.
Dividing the design into sub areas in a screening matrix and brainstorming
about these led to a wide range of ideas. The solutions to each area were
then combined in different ways to create the best concepts. To choose one
concept the necessity of desired criteria's were weighed against each other
and then the concepts were scored by how well they fulfilled those.
All this led up to the final concept, the Clear Cooktop. The dimensions of
Clear are suited to fit the selected markets as good as possible. It has a
smooth and easy to clean top surface consisting of two different types of
ceramic glass, black above the elements, and a frosted clear glass piece
where the control panel is. The control panel and the interface are
developed with capacitiv...
