ERGONOMIC BOTTLE OPENER
How might we redesign a hand tool to be more ergonomic by utilizing iterative design and qualitative testing by users?
at a glance
The hand tool my team chose to redesign is a bottle opener. Even with just our personal use with bottle openers we noticed a myriad of pain points (quite literally), which other users also echoed. By interviewing and observing users and later analyzing their posture, we decided on a final design of a bottle opener that is the most ergonomic. We arrived at our final design through rounds of sketch and foam iterations, testing with users along the way.
timeline
February 2023
team
David Dubinin
Makayla Brown
tools
SolidWorks
process
define
explore
refine
foam modeling
user observation
evaluate
iterate
CAD modeling
problem
We noticed a variety of issues with the standard bottle opener from confusion to injury. For example, many people are still unsure how to use it even though there are multiple ways to. Additionally, standard bottle openers are generally too small for people's hands causing cramping and even cutting your finger if you're holding it at a less than optimal angle. However, we recognized that every body is different and what is optimal for one person could be the opposite for another.
define
We first analyzed the biomechanics of the action of opening a bottle with a standard opener and realized just how bad of positions it puts your wrist in. We then developed a set of design requirements of our new bottle opener taking into account the faults of the current standard as well as the want to create a product for the majority of people.
explore & refine
I then explored 10 new concepts and narrowed in on 2 to take further. Meanwhile, my teammates did the same so that we had 6 ideas that we were taking to the next step.
foam modeling
I first made 1:1 orthographic projections, started carving out my models, then sanded them down so they would be ready for user testing and evaluation.
user observation & evaluation
We user-tested with three students who have different dominant hands. Ashton is a lefty, Iris is a righty, and Viv is technically a righty but switches between her hands a lot. We choose these three because they have various hand sizes and experience with opening bottles. We allowed users to figure out how to handle each prototype themselves which led to them using each prototype in different ways. Sometimes we stepped in to help guide their use of the prototypes but still took the RULA scores of the first time they tried so as to not be biased in our testing.
Through interacting with users we discovered that the one handed designs were especially difficult to use because of the added stress on that one hand. We then decided to move forward with the design pictured at right as two users did not report any pain with it while the last user reported pain in keeping their wrist strong and unmoving which is really what we want! Users expressed that they liked that they could move the device in any direction which would allow them to pick a way that is least painful/stressful to them at that moment.
A snippet of the evaluations for the design we choose are below.
iterate
After deciding on one prototype from the first round, we expanded our ideating again. We then decided on two design space parameters to center our next round of models around: handle length and grip contour. We each took 2 ideas from the grid on the left and made foam models of them.
After another round of user testing and evaluation, we decided which prototype was the best for the majority of people. We did this by using subjective measures (intuitive, comfort, usability, angles) and a structured questionnaire (pictured below) we had each user fill out for all 6 prototypes.
For our final design, we opted for the 5.75in version of the original straight handle. After our user evaluations, this design did not show any noticeable downsides, scoring highly not only on all of our subjective measures but also on the objective measures of postural angles. The extra length tackled all the shortcomings of the shorter models. However, we altered the shape of the top part of the opener to be more oval, which will better match the natural shape of the palm of the hand, allowing for a stronger grip without losing all the benefits of the design we discovered from user feedback. The final foam model is pictured below.
CAD modeling
My CAD rendering of our new opener in SolidWorks, that utilizes surfacing, is below!
