Little Green Egg

How

User Research, User Experience Design,

Product Design, Real Product Making, Branding

When & Where

2016, Taipei

Who

Final Project

THE PROBLEM

After leaving parent home for college, I started to eat meals out since there is no kitchen in dormitory.

It is common to finish your every meal out in Taiwan , because it is relatively convenient and cheap. However, I found it might be a reason for my declining health.

Recently there are a lot of different news about food safety. I did some research to find out there is not only because of the food enterprise’s corruption but so much more problems tangled together.

DIGGING INTO THE PROBLEM

Diet is one of the most important things for human on a daily basis. The healthy diet not only depend on external choice, but also inner recuperate.

Always eat out: It is convenient and cheap. Also not all the accommodations have kitchen.

The meal is losing natural taste and we are losing sensitivity of taste: Modern diet almost can not avoid the processed food, which would affect sensitivity of taste so it’s getting harder and harder to distinguish the natural flavor.

Lack of food education: We don’t have the comprehensive food education in Taiwan, so people fail to realize diet can be a doctor and a devil as well.

No connection to land: People in modern society always live a fast-paced life, we lose the connection to land. We don't realize how the food grow up, in this case, it is difficult for us to respect the food and feel the energy after eating them.

DISCOVER HOW

We step into the farm, put out feet into soil, and learned natural agriculture is the best way for everyone, no matter is land, animal or human.

According to the saying from Anna Lappe, “Every time you spend money, you're casting a vote for the kind of world you want”. We go to farmer markets to see if people have the knowledge about this issue and how they deal with this problem, are they willing to change?

We find that there are lots of different activities to spread eco-friendly lifestyle and try to educate people what is better for the earth, even themselves.

After, we join the school to initiate food education. We tried different way to see what kids love and what can bring their curiosity up. Learning by playing!

DEFINE WHAT WE SEE

The food education is not only for children but for adults. However, it's more difficult to change adults’ habit since they’ve already lived like this for many years. Children are different, they are like sponges. They basically learn a lot everyday, and absorb most of things you teach them! By education, they can form good habits!

So we get to the family and have a interview with them, we want to realizeknow if parent understand what is food education and how it can improve their life.

After the data collection and field research, we define the destination of the product:

5 senses experiments
Food education
Real taste
Bring out curiosity
Forming good habits
For kids
Taste training
Do by themselves
Learning by playing

After brainstorming and being challenged for many times, also considering the cost and market acceptance, we came up with a planting toy!

IDEATE

Although it has already had lots of planting toys in the market which enable to teach them how to cook or plant. There is not a comprehensive product which can get closer to nature. Besides, in this generation, people always eat out and lack comprehensive food education, children don't have any chances to reach the real food or realize how to grow food.

We believe that let children grow their own food can teach them not only their responsibilities but empathy.

So we try to narrow down the goal and define the product.

Why: By planting

Who: The children living in the cities. The children growing up in the cities have less chance to realize the food cycle as well as plant their own food.

Where: Home. it’s easier to observe the plant everyday. And the parents can assist them.

What: Leaf vegetables. There are few kinds of vegetables will grow up and be harvested in 30 days. Preventing the children from losing patience because of the long waiting time.

DESIGN

Little green egg is a planting toy which is especially designed for the children living in the cities. We hope it can make it up the breach that they couldn’t get close to nature. From growing up the edible leafy plants, harvesting to eating. Children feel satisfied to gain achievement from observing, planting and eating the food they grow. It also cultivate a good sense of taste for them.

The food scandal has broken out due to a series of food safety incidents in Taiwan. It’s the reason why diet education becomes a serious issue needed to be emphasized. Our design use the concept of game to teach children planting and the importance of diet. They can realize how the plants are growing by game interaction. The lovely shape of egg and inner surprise egg design would let children fall in love at first sight! Made by wood and colored by non-toxic paint, we hope kids could grow their own vegetables happily and healthily!

from CURIOSITY to LEARNING

form HOME to NATURE

MODEL MAKING

PROTOTYPE

REAL PRODUCT MAKING

LITTLE GREEN EGG

．Round shape of egg: The main target users are children, so it’s better not to have angle which might hurt them.

．Bright color: To trigger children’s curiosity. When children feel curious about something, they will always want to touch and feel them.

．Five-Levels-Design: It do not have complicated procedures involved. From upper to the bottom, it's the order of using the product. We try to simplify the product and hope children won't feel exclusion of it.

．Trigger their curiosity: We put the seed inside the custom gypsum egg which is the mixture of the sawdust of Taiwan Cypressand gypsum. When you hold it, you can smell the scent of the Taiwan Cypress. We found that not only the bright color but the scent can trigger children’s curiosity.

．LED Light: To achieve a more successful harvest, we set a LED light especially for Leaf vegetables, which let them keep growing during the night or without sunshine.

Guide Design

Since children are not good at reading the instructions, we use some direct design details in the product to guide them.

Layer1：Using the S shape to guide them which way is correct to open. .

Layer2：There are some shallow holes with bold contrasting color guide them where to hold, also achieve the anti-slip function.

Layer3：We set two skid rails for them to position the pots. So the drain can connect to the next layer which collect superfluous water.

Layer3：There are two holes on both side of the pots and the width is based on children's hands. Which is designed to guide children to hold the pots through the holes.

Don't just give the food to your kids,

give them some REAL TASTE !