A Pepper Grinder Redesign
suzhal (sūlal)
Timeframe
2 weeks
Brief
Suzhal is a redesign of a wooden pepper grinder with the aim to solve issues found with it through changing the form.
Desk Research
User Priority
Mapping out the users who commonly interact with the product in terms of usage.
Primary Users
Chefs/Culinary Students and Waiters
Secondary Users
Household Cooks
Environmental Analysis:
A broad look into the spaces that commonly host the product.
Countertops
Cupboards
Dining Table
Insights from Interviews
Repetitive Points (Professional Chefs)
Regularly maintains the pepper grinder
Prefers metal pepper grinders over wooden ones
Regularly uses the pepper grinder
Repetitive Points (Culinary Students)
Irregular maintenance of pepper grinder
Unfamiliar with wooden pepper grinder's adjustable grind
Has not used a wooden pepper grinder
Repetitive Points (Household Cooks)
Uses pepper powder for dishes
Unfamiliar with pepper grinder's turning mechanism
Has never even heard of pepper grinders
Problems Identified:
Most people who are unfamiliar with the product do not identify the object with a twisting mechanism and rather try to pull the pepper mill’s head from the body instead.
Users, even experienced ones, are unable to instinctively understand that by simply rotating a pepper grinder in clockwise and anticlockwise direction, he/she may obtain a fine and course grain respectively.
Redefined Brief
Create a pepper grinder which conveys the rotational motion of it as well as depicts the direction to turn to achieve course and fine grain through only changing the form.
The head has a broad and tapered end which provides information as to which side it should be turned to get fine and course grain.
The body is twisted acting as an affordance to the user indicating a twisting motion to be used.
Ideation
Form Ideation
Selected Form
Form Modelling
Final Form
