liebertj

[liebertj]

This product is an electric kettle which I bought for my dorm. Electric kettles are not so common in America but in places like the UK there is one in every home, it is considered just as much an essential as a microwave. Because of this there is definitely demand for them, meaning the inspiration for this design was probably to create an electric kettle at a competitive price point while still maintaining the integrity of the design. 

For the person who designed this, material was especially important. One of the reasons I purchased this kettle specifically was because the entire body is made of metal. Many other designs had plastic bodies which meant you were continuously boiling plastic into your water and that idea make me uneasy. Another important aspect for the designer was maintaining the functionality. An electric kettle serves two purposes: 1: boil water, 2: pour water. The base serves to heat the water, while the easy to hold handle and gooseneck spout ensure a perfect pour. 

To a prospective user who has never seen the product, it wouldn’t be hard to describe it to them. I would tell them about how the metal body will keep boiled plastic out of their water. That the gooseneck spout allows for extreme accuracy in water delivery (this is important if you’re into coffee). It’s not in the picture but the kettle actually came with a small thermometer which goes into the lid and tells you when you hit the ideal temperature for various types of teas and beverages. The red indicator light fool-proofs accidentally leaving it on, but there isn’t a need to worry about that anyways because it turns off automatically when it reaches 165F. Finally, I would tell them how the cord rolls up into the base for easy storage. 

One constraint as I mentioned earlier is cost of materials. I paid $27 for this kettle, and I wouldn’t have paid anymore. The best selling electric kettle on amazon is $21, but the best selling gooseneck electric kettle goes for over $70. This means there is a marketplace for luxury kettles, but this one is trying to stay in the affordable range while having some of the features of the luxury ones. A nice compromise they made for this was including the thermometer, because many expensive ones have a digital thermometer built into the base. Another constraint would be material, as it obviously cannot be made of wood for example, and metal is more ideal than plastic as mentioned. 

[liebertj]

This is an image of a drawer which comes standard on all URI dorm desks. The drawer is fitted with two pieces of metal which allow it to function as a lock box. If you place a lock through the two holes the drawer will then be unable to open, therefore the purpose of this design is to make it difficult for someone to steal your belongings. But, there is a very obvious design problem here. The front metal piece is very obviously attached by two basic screws. Meaning that if this drawer was locked and someone wanted access to what was inside, all they would have to do is simply unscrew those two screws and then the drawer would be open. Because a drawer with a lock on it clearly contains valuables, I’m sure I am not the first one to have noticed how easy it would be to get those valuables. It would surely be inspiring to the school to fix these desks if there was a large scale theft in a dorm, but hopefully that wont happen. In order to solve this problem, the first steps would be to identify the needs and constraints. In this situation the need is that the solution has to allow a lock to keep the desk shut while also being difficult/impossible to remove from the drawer itself. The constraints are that it has to be relatively inexpensive in order for the school to implement it, as well as it has to fit onto the drawer properly.