IDEO Movie- Reflection

   This video was very informative and gave all of us students a look into what being in the design world was really like. It was watched at the very beginning of our project, so the subject matter being re-designing something was very suitable. A group of professionals were put together and were to re-design a shopping cart. Shopping carts have just always been the way they are so it seems to me like it would be very difficult to try and change it. They went through basically the same process that we have for our project. They brainstormed and then each made prototypes showing their ideas for re-designing the object. The most innovative concepts from each were then taken and merged into one. The key to re-designing the cart was to list all of the problems that the original had. In the movie, the problems were: they are frequently stolen, they are bulky to take down aisles, and checking out took a while. The wanted to fix these problems by: making the cart just a frame with baskets, to make it less likely to be stolen, also the baskets in the cart were to be removable to take down the aisles and then put back into the cart, and they made a scanner so you could scan your items as they were placed in the cart and then the cashier takes it from there. They really thought outside the box and were able to produce a very innovative, new look for the typical shopping cart.

   We wanted to use the same process for our prototype seeing that it worked pretty well with theirs. The problems with our pair of tongs were: it was all metal so it was pretty likely that you could burn your hand if you were trying to handle hot food, the durability was not very good, and the holes for your fingers was not very comfortable. After brainstorming in class, making mind and word maps, and sketching, we were able to come up with a new design for the tongs. We made it so that it will have a heat resistant grip so that you don’t burn yourself, and it will have a spoon and a fork so that it can handle food better, and lastly it will be made out of a different material that is still as durable as metal. The IDEO movie helped a lot to see where we needed to start with the project and what we needed to be doing in order to come up with the best re-design for tongs possible!