Ice Cream Scoop Ergonomics Evaluation and Redesign
ENP-114, Ergonomics in Design
Professor Nick Katis
Fall, 2024
This four-person group project involved a two-phase approach to evaluate the ergonomics of three ice cream scoops and then to improve one. In the first phase, we conducted a user study with 12 participants to assess three scoops, gathering feedback on comfort, effectiveness, and frustration, alongside hand measurements (e.g., hand width, thumb length) to explore the relationship between physical features and user experience. Based on these findings, the second phase focused on redesigning our second-choice scoop to address identified usability issues, enhancing its functionality and user satisfaction through an iterative design process.
Part 1:
Recommendation and Companion Report
This project was themed as though we were employees of a company that was moving in a home goods direction and needed to select an ice cream scoop brand to partner with. Our job was to compare three brands of ice cream scoop with an empirical study and then provide both a recommendation of which brand the company should proceed with, and also a companion report describing our process in detail.
Components of this project included the following:
For our study to compare three brands of ice cream scoop
A short description and explanation of our final decision
A detailed rundown of our process, study results, study analysis, and final recommendation (example pages pictured right)
Part 2:
Ergonomic Analysis & Design Recommendations
The second half of this project was themed as though our company was unable to partner with our first choice brand, and we needed to select our second or third choices and make a series of ergonomic recommendations to the product.
Components of this project (example slides pictured left) included the following:
Chosen Brand
Brief Rationale for choice
High-Level Overview of design recommendations
Detailed View of each design recommendation
Next Steps
References