soda can redesign

OVERVIEW

My team of five was tasked with redesigning an everyday object that the average person has encountered before or encounters often. We decided to redesign a soda can. Based on our collective user testing process and final problem statements, I spearheaded the creation of our team's redesign. I started with a team brainstorm of suggestions from my teammates. I created designs based on their input and my experience with producing high level engineering designs. This led to my final prototype idea, which was used for the final submission.

SKILLS

Prototyping, User Research, Sketching

PROJECT RUN

November 2020 - December 2020

background

Even the best engineering designs are useless if they are not user friendly. During my Introduction to Engineering Design class in my third year of college, I enjoyed coming up with different solutions to open-ended problems and bringing my ideas to life. After this experience, there was an aspect of the engineering design process that I wanted to learn more about: design usability. I decided to take a course titled The Design of Everyday Things, where I learned about the basics of design serving the connection between users and different objects. For my final project in the class, my team of five was tasked with redesigning something that the average person uses often or has encountered before. We had to identify the subject of our redesign, narrow down issues with the subject that we wanted to investigate, collect user data with, identify trends, and iterate on a solution.

my team's solution

To address the issues of sanitation, ease of opening the can, transparency, and resealing the can, my team and I decided to create a soda can redesign with the following major features: a metal body with a plastic top. The plastic top includes a sliding cap cover to slide over and away from the cap whenever the user needs to store the soda can or take a sip. The edge of the cap is attached to the can, and can snap open and shut. More details are included below.

the design process

My team primarily followed the Double Diamond Model to guide our design process. To break down our specific stages of design during the project, my team and I went through the following steps to create our prototype:

Brainstorming - Utilized mind maps to choose an item and identify features of the soda that users interact with.
Data Collection - Prepared for user interviews by preparing pre-task questions, tasks for the user to perform with a soda can during the interview, and post-task questions. Conducted 3-4 interviews each.
Identifying Trends & Problems - Created figures and identified trends based on user responses during interviews. Used this information to identify four problems of focus for the redesign:
Creating a Redesign - Considered problems from the last step and created redesign ideas that aimed to tackle these issues. From here, we iterated on different ideas and narrowed down the redesign to a single prototype.
Justifying the Design - Analyzed how each problem was addressed by the redesign, created design spaces to compare redesign to competitors, and considered design trade-offs.

final presentation slides

My teammates and I provided an overview of our methodology, data, and redesign in the presentation above. I spearheaded the redesign section of the project, and briefly speak about it from 5:04-6:17 in the recording. My general process for the redesign in collaboration with my team is detailed below.

working through the redesign

During the redesign stage of the project, I developed the majority of the initial sketches, and developed the final prototype. Initially, I considered the problems that my team and I identified from the user data. From here I created initial redesign sketches that provided solutions to these issues. From here, I presented them to my team and I received feedback on each one. After this group discussion and input from my teammates, I narrowed down the most successful aspects of the different redesign ideas and combined them to create the final design.

my initial sketches

After identifying the different problems that we wanted to focus on, my team and I decided to to a group call and brainstorming session. If any of us had any ideas that we wanted to present to the group, we could. I decided to bring in the three sketches below to supplement my explanations.

1

3

2

Each of these satisfy the four areas of focus for the redesign: transparency, sanitation, opening the can, and resealing the can. They are explained briefly below, and correspond with the number annotations on the images provided:

A soda can with a transparent top and detachable cap. The cap covers the entire top of the can and seals the opening of the can tightly.
A metal soda can body with a protector that slides rotationally away and over the opening of the can.
A transparent drinking spout that can be positioned for sipping soda and back to its original position for storage.

In the end, we decided to move forward with the second option and add an additional feature that allows the can to properly seal and reseal. The final redesign is shown below.

the final redesign

sliding cap protector

cap space

plastic top

aluminum

body

slider bearings

snap-on soda cap

top view of soda can

As shown above, the new design takes on a traditional can shape consisting of an aluminum body fitted with a plastic top. The main features of the redesign are located at the top of the can, which includes: the sliding cap protector, the snap-on soda cap attached to the rim of the can, the “soda cap space” where the cap sits when the user is drinking from the can, and two slider bearings.

steps for using the can

1. rotate the cap protector to expose the cap

2. use the flared edge of the cap to lift the cap up and place it in the cap space at the center of the can

a.

c.

b.

d.

Images a-d show the can being open from corresponding top views (a & b) and side views (c & d). To the left in images a & c, the cap is initially closed. In images b & d, the cap has been pulled back and snapped into place at the center of the can. This allows the user to keep the connected cap in place.

3. enjoy the drink! for storage, place the cap in its original position to seal the can. lastly, place the cap protector over the cap.

feedback & future directions

Overall, my team and I were praised for the trends that we identified during our user interviews and the different issues we decided to focus on, such as transparency to evaluate the state of your drink (carbonation, foreign debris, etc.) The redesign was acknowledged for effectively targeting each issue of a normal soda can that we discussed. The sketches throughout the process were also praised for showing in communicating different design features and concepts.

Due to the nature of the project, several factors were not taken into consideration and would be accounted for with any continuations of this initial proposal. For the purposes of this project, ease of manufacturing was not a major factor in the creation of this redesign. However, it would definitely influence any future iterations, since the intricate details on top of the can take more resources to produce than a normal soda can. Exploring designs with transparent material for the entire can is also an option to consider.

my project takeaways

If there is anything that I learned: UX design is so cool. Prior to this project, my love and appreciation for design thinking was through a technical lens using engineering principles. However, approaching design through a user-centered approach and performing user research added a breath to creating that I was missing in past projects. What's really cool is that I have found these concepts coming up in my everyday life. I see an individual struggle with opening a door at a local store and rack my brain for the different ways the design could make the user experience smoother. Overall, I am finding that UX design has changed the way that I move through this world, and that is really something to marvel at from time to time.