1. Current Trends In Microwave oven Design Microwave oven design has evolved from within functionality but it remains largely under-designed in terms of user interaction and usability. Creeping featurism of existing microwave oven is creating user confusion and as a result making users’ realization of core goals much harder and frustrating. There is a need for user- centered microwave oven design that will provide users with better or easier: o Task Performance o Functionality o Efficiency o Effectiveness o Affordance o Emotional Satisfaction

2. User Population The microwave oven user population is rapidly increasing. In 1998 microwave ownership figure was 70.6% and increased to 83.5% in 2004. Currently the microwave ownership stands at 84% of all households in UK. User Population are divided into following 4 user persona groups to grasp the overall user requirements: o 18-25 o 26-44 o 45-75 o 76 and over Figure: Rise of one-person household Figure: Household penetration of microwave oven

3. User Requirements Gathering As microwave oven market is a well- established market the opportunity of design lies on the latent needs and the emergent behavior users employ to interact with the microwave oven. The following research methods have been used to find out the user behavior and requirements: o Task Analysis o Observation o Self report Log Research Findings: o Users mainly carry out core usage of Microwave Oven that are reheating, defrosting and cooking. o Users mostly use Microwave oven on full power. o Users use the time selection knob as a switch. o Overwhelming features confuses users.

4. Design Concepts Generation & Evaluation Design Concepts have been generated with relevant to the research findings and cognitive psychology concepts such as mental models, metaphors, mapping and affordnace. Design Concepts for Microwave oven have been generated using o Sketch modeling o Paper prototyping o Onscreen prototyping. Iterative design process has been undertaken to rectify the design flaws from the user evaluation of the rapid prototypes early in the design stage. User Involvement has been maintained throughout the design concept development stage. The functionality, accessibility and usability of the prototypes has been evaluated using following evaluation methods: o Heuristic evaluation o Cognitive Walkthrough

5. 30 25 20 15 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Operation of time slider upwards corresponds to the users perception. Full power is on by default. Selecting Defrost button disengages full power Start Stop Door Open Self-explanatory Start, Stop and Door Open buttons Colour intensity of the time scale as time selection increases helps users understand easily, which time range they are selecting. MINMIN SECSEC FULL POWER DEFROST FULL POWER Final Design concept(EasyCook)

6. Interaction and usability strength of EasyCook The user testing reveals the final Design Concept significantly reduces the tasks to achieve the core goals. Users only need to select time using time slider (image 2) and press Start button (image 3) to reheat or cook. This also provides clear feedback of cooking or reheating stage with the change of indoor light colour (image 3, 4 & 5) along with other feedbacks. Task 1: Selection of timeObject Inside. No task has been selected Task 2: Pressing of Start Button. o This starts the microwave oven. Blue colour of indoor light indicates primary stage of cooking. Middle stage of the activity selected Closing stage of the activity selected 3 12 54