The Boing CartHuman-centered product development & prototyping work to improve hotel employees’ safety // “ME 292C: Human-Centered Design Methods” at UC Berkeley // 2022
Cleaning hotels is hard work. You have to immerse yourself in other people’s messes and undo them under a ticking clock. On top of that, every step to access your supplies adds a chance for injury. Whether it’s the repetitive stress of bending over to get supplies or the strain of pushing an overloaded cart, something’s likely to hurt you. It’s painful, demoralizing, and expensive.
I stumbled upon this issue in graduate school with my teammates Samuel Lee, Rebecca Wong, and Jingan Zhang in Mechanical Engineering 292C: Human Centered Design Methods. As we brainstormed dozens of product opportunities, hotel safety gathered interest from all of us. When we narrowed in on more specific problems to solve, ergonomics stood out. I was recovering from a severed tendon in my hand at the time and saw the plight that even simple injuries could bring. Our team coalesced around safety and mobility. The project took off, and we developed a concept for a lightweight, spring-loaded cart to reduce occupational hazards.
This semester-long project was one of the biggest of my graduate program. It took us through the human-centered design process, from identifying product opportunities all the way up to initial prototyping. (While I would have liked to iterate further, additional work with the team was limited by budget restraints and precautions to mitigate the COVID pandemic).
For a full process document, please see below.
A full slidedeck/report for the Boing Cart project is embedded below. PDF embedding displays weirdly on some devices; if the slidedeck does not display correctly in your browser, you can also download it.