Campus Cookware Smart Rental

An app and smart-rental locker system that allows newly independent University of Washington students living in dorms access to cultural cookware

Design 206: Research Methods

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My Role: User Researcher, Product Designer, + Film Director

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Figma + Premiere Pro

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Design 206: Research Methods / My Role: User Researcher, Product Designer, + Film Director / Figma + Premiere Pro /

Jan 2025 - Mar 2025

Where do I begin?

I was an Interaction Design student in a group with 2 Visual Communication Design students and 1 Industrial Design student.

Our Challenge.

Design a product or service that reveals the relationship between food and heritage.

My Team: Akhil Raote, Juliette Kwak, and Sarah Tindell

Researching Seattle

I designed posters to hook foodies to take our survey. Then, we posted them up in the Greater Seattle Area.

In the end, we gathered survey data from 62 individuals and conducted 5 focus interviews.

  • “Up here, ingredients are just incredibly uncommon. And usually the places you have to go to are incredibly expensive. They end up having to import them from Nigeria.”

    21 yr old male, born and raised in Nigeria

  • “[In the] Wintertime, [the] whole village ladies gather and we make daengjang (soybean paste), a lot of kimchi... we work together, we enjoy together, we share the food together.”

    57 yr old female, born and raised in Korea

  • “My Mom makes [Sopa Aguada] a little bit different, like more to our liking. I wouldn’t say it’s less traditional because we make it differently [than how my grandparents make it].”

    20 year old female, 1st gen to Mexican immigrants

Our Results

We found that cultural food allowed people to access memories and culinary knowledge from the generations before them.

But, many respondents noted that they lacked access to cultural cookware and ingredients.

25.8%

of respondents feel like they don’t have access to the cookware or ingredients to cook food from their culture

Ideation

After brainstorming, we decided to concentrate on 3 different ideas that focused on young adults in the UW area who lack to cook their cultural foods. We settled on a Cookware Rental system due to its practicality and ability to adapt to student life.

Cooking Workshops by Local Chefs

Free cooking workshops for students taught by local chefs, teaching them how to cook with provided supplies and ingredients

Why not?

Difficult to plan and maintain consistent learning with busy student schedule

Competes with already existing cooking workshops at UW

App to locate Hard-to-find ingredients

An ingredient finding app that helps young adults locate hard-to-find ingredients, uplifting visibility for small culture-specific grocers

Why not?

Impractical compared to the ease of a social media search and directions from Google Maps

Only targets UW students who are already interested in cooking

Cookware Rental Locker

A smart-rental locker system in student dorms that allows students to reserve cultural cookware that may be hard to store in dorms or too expensive to purchase.

Why we chose it:

Visibility in campus dorms sparks curiousity and encourages independent exploration on students’ own time

Specifically targets newly independent college students due to system promoting timeliness and cleanliness.

How might we…

make cultural cookware accessible on campus to newly independent college students at UW?

How we found the look

We were first drawn to the practicality and familiarity of the Amazon package rooms available for UW students living in dorms

Then one day, I noticed a locker in my apartment’s gym that had clear cases. It was called TULU, a smart-rental system that allows residents to reserve items such as vacuums, games, and emergency necessities.

More voices!

We conducted a workshop for two UW students and instructed them to improvise possible scenarios, sort locker-feature cards, and draw and narrate their own lockers.

Participants prefer a locker with

01 - Clear windows and a friendly design

02 - Reservation time notifications

03 - A double-clean system done by both students and workers

04 - It’s location on the first floor of every dormitory hall

The Vision

A smart rental locker and app that…

01

Fosters learning opportunities through cultural exploration and reservation responsibility

02

Educates students about the history of the cookware, its culinary versatility, and its care instructions

03

Located on the first floor of dorm halls, has clear windows, and has a sleek, friendly frame

The mood

We wanted the app and physical locker to complement each other. Inspired by natural textures and colors and the comfort of sharing food, the final product was designed to feel light and friendly.

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The Final Project

In 10 weeks, we created a prototyped app, a 3D model, and a film.

Explore cuisines around the world

Pickup at a locker on campus NEAR YOU

SIMPLY Reserve any type of cookware for your next meal or event

Easy rentals, endless flavors.

Simply enter in your code and unlock a world of authentic cookware.

The Final Film

Shot and directed by me.

If I had more time?

.I would research what specific cookware would be the most used by UW students.

.I would test how intuitive the physical locker system would be for students.

.I would launch our app and rental system to be integrated into the UW dorms.

Take-aways

.Find potential in the things you find most interesting by asking yourself “what if?”

.Peer feedback can tell you much more than what you’re able to tell yourself

.Group work is done best when we contribute what we’re passionate about