What is a Personal Blender and How does it help?
A personal blender is a convenience kitchenware for the dedicated smoothie lover who’s short on time in the morning. It is for the people who want to quickly make a morning smoothie and run out the door either to go to work or go for morning exercise without having to clean a blender pitcher and lid.
What are the problems with Personal Blenders?
Through research and interviews, the most discussed problems faced by users were the inconvenience of cleaning the blender, leakage of liquid while blending or while carrying the blender pitcher, the noise it creates when blending and the user interface.
Cleaning
Noise
Leakage
Interface
Insights of what users want from personal blender
Moreover, through interviews, I was able to find many insights that could be redesigned in an industrial design manner.
Who are the Target User?
Moodboard Form
Through the form moodboard, I wanted to explore forms that have both angular and curved surfaces that can be balanced when it becomes one, while engraving the current trend of smart looking design to match the persona’s environment.
Moodboard Pattern
Pattern moodboard was also explored to give a design identity while also considering functionality of the pattern to make the personal blender more unique.
Exploration Sketching
Prototype Models
From the exploration sketching, three main concepts were chosen for prototyping to receive feedback on the form through interview and from my personal experimentation.
Front View
Profile View
Final Form
User Interface Concepts
Final User Interface
Color Strategy
To satisfy all the user’s needs, four colors for the product was chosen. Off white, Grey Navy, Coral and Light Pink.
Off-White symbolizes goodness, spirituality and purity. White is also often associated with innocence.
Navy Grey conveys importance, confidence, power, and authority, as well as intelligence, stability, unity, and conservatism.
Coral represents the ability to fill ourselves with light and life, expand without ego, to trust our community, to embrace togetherness and oneness to build something beautiful and bigger than ourselves.
Light Pink is the color of universal love of oneself and of others. Pink represents friendship, affection, harmony, inner peace, and approachability.
fuse and stay healthy.
Portability and Technology
Portability is the main reason why people love personal blenders. The pitcher is designed to fit perfectly for vehicles’ cup holders and as said before, the magnetic brushless motor that connects to the magnetic coupler inside the blades’ base removes all the unnecessary parts to join them together to make the interaction of attaching and detaching the pitcher easier. Also, you can place the blender pitcher to the main base in any direction, making your blending experience easier and faster.
Portability and Technology
Portability is the main reason why people love personal blenders. The pitcher is designed to fit perfectly for vehicles’ cup holders and as said before, the magnetic brushless motor that connects to the magnetic coupler inside the blades’ base removes all the unnecessary parts to join them together to make the interaction of attaching and detaching the pitcher easier. Also, you can place the blender pitcher to the main base in any direction, making your blending experience easier and faster.
Ergonomics
While competitors’ pitchers might be big to carry for some users as average pitchers consume 20~30 fl oz, fuse’s extrude cutted holder at each side of the pitcher makes it easier to carry. Moreover, the lid is designed to mimic the design language of the main base for unity and precision.
Unity and Precision
The lid is designed to mimic the design language of the main base for unity and precision.
Smart Interaction
The indented curved interface on top of the base is too simple and intuitive to use. To power the blender, press the physical on/off button.
Smart Interaction
To blend the ingredients, simply swipe the circle icon from left to right to increase the speed or tap your intended circle icon for faster interaction.
Smart Interaction
Also, when the user has found a perfect speed to blend your smoothie, tap the smart icon that you see on the left to preset your speed for conveniently making your smoothie faster next time.
Finally, wait one minute to blend your healthy smoothie until it stops automatically.
Artistic Visual
The transparent patterned surface brings artistic refraction effect. Not only is it aesthetically pleasing, it also psychologically gives stability and safeness to the user, making the blending experience more convenient and fun.
Form Follows Function
The main purpose of the patterned surface that continues from the bottom base to the blender pitcher is so that the user can seal the pitcher perfectly. This not only prevents leakage, but also saves time in the whole blending process
CMF
