Interview Questions And Answers 
-
How would you design a spice rack for a blind person?
17,519 Views |
(22 votes, avg: 3.45)
Loading ...
Answers »
Our Sponsors
Our Sponsors
How would you design a spice rack for a blind person?
17,519 Views | (22 votes, avg: 3.45)
Loading ...
Put braille labels on the jars. You will want to put them on the lid instead of the side. The jars are usually round, and it is hard to read braile on a curved surface. That is why using the lid is better.
1. Talk to a few people who are blind and see what they have problems with, and what concerns they have.
2. Design a system, and show it to your test group.
3. Make changes on their feed back.
4. Repeat until a final result is found that everyone can live with.
helpmefindjob said you should put brail labels on the jars. However, the task was to design a spice rack, not the jars. Might the labels go on the spice rack next to holes fitted for the spice jars so that the blind person could take a known spice down, put it back and always know which spice she had?
Or we can probably put a sensor on the different jars so that it will play the name of the spice upon touching. This way the blind person is not required to know braille.
No need to redesign the rack.
No use to place brail labels on the rack… what happens if the spice bottles are switched within the rack? If brail is to be used, it goes on the bottle.
Similar to regular people they place the spices in the same place within the rack, and thus are able to identify them quickly.
However, they confirm the spice by SMELLING it, much like a regular person.
Every bottle should have unique form (e.g. hexagonal form for salt, octagonal for pepper) - and rack should have appropriately designed holes.
More interesting question is how to measure portions of spices. Some regulable mechanism to limit amount of spice during one bottle application should be integrated into bottle.
Design a circular rack with holes on the top where you can deposit spice bottles - Make sure that the size of the lid is slightly greater than the size of the hole and the size of the bottle matches it (So that the bottle will hang in the hole).
Design a braille text which matches the offset location of a spice from an end (say left end) to its contents. The user reads the braille and gets the offset. He counts offset items from the left and picks up the spice - done!
In the same rack another way is to provide different hole shapes and associate the shape with the spice. But the indexing option is good enough.
Why don’t we think simply. Just make a several floor rack and make the blind person remember which spice is in which rack. The blind guy can always count the floor no. by touch.
I think that we should take care of every posibility here..let make this full proof with all ur answers.let seperate the racks according to the spice so that blind person cud read the braille label on racks and reach the one where he would get his spice…but there are are some who want a double check so lets put braille label tied to the sacks of that spice.Now still blind person wants more assurance then they have other senses smell,taste etc..get some idea out and bring it to use…so my answer in same as u all but one thing is that i tried to make it full proof..that the whole pointu.you have to prepared for everything if u want to sell ur product…:D
How about getting rid of jars and adding packets instead. So quantity can be measured accurately. And these packets can be placed in shelfs or any other form of braille enables system.
Blind respond best to Braille if they know it or Sound id they don’t. So the options are Braile lables or sensors for names. Neither of these should be on the lids as those can be switched by accident. So whether its a label or a sensor, both should be for the jar directly. Both these options don’t require any memory effort on the customers part.
Design bottles with unique cross-sections and design a (lazy susan type) spice rack with holes such that each hole will accept one and only one spice container.
Braile label the edge of the spice rack so that there is one braile spice label per hole. A quick location of a desired spice can be made by reading the braile labels while spinning the rack.
Braile label each jar top and bottle so that the tops can be easily matched with the bottles.
Later, if two or more bottles are on the counter awaiting use, the person can confirm which is which by reading the bottle or bottle top.
The same way you would design an ordinary spice rack, just make sure it is at nose level so they can smell which spice they want to use…
I would use stainless steel jars with air tight lids to keep the spices fresh on a open rack frame.
Why not design braille embossed stickers instead, then they can be used for more than one purpose, for spice racks, jars, all manner of different things and the person can choose any product they like the aethetic feel of and label them how they wish, either on the spice rack itself or the spice jars themselves.
Best way: put a person there to tell him what he wants, and he can fill and give to him.
If money is the problem & if medium is hygenic : make spice racks open divided by trunk, which is touchable. “A blind person” can differ from smells and can take what he wants (provided he has a spoon(or whatever you call) and a bag.
Complex and technologic way: Do an automated spice machine that responds to voice. Design is patent pending.
The best way i think is to put some amount of the spice on the lid of the Jars(the same spice which is filled in that jar.) The blind person simply taste the spice and pick the desired jar.
He should know the taste of all the spices.
I would start by looking for existing designs of spice rack for the vision impaired on the market as well as the award wining spice designs of conventional spice racks and also other home utensils for the blind.
I’d then try my own original designs, while doing lots of reading and research on best design practices for the blind and disabled. I’d also try to informally interview a few blind people to try to understand their needs and preferences and sympathize with their point-of-view. I’d set-up a focus group representing the target audience to test and provide feedback on the few best designs. I’d then use the feedback to improve the designs. I’d iterate the feedback/improvement loop until I get a winner design. During the whole process, I’d also take in account other design concerns such as manufacturability and costs.
If you put yourself in the position of the interviewer, you will realize that the question is not about the actual design of a spice rack, but about how would you tackle a new problem in an entirely unfamiliar subject.
Novice programmers will do exactly what most of the posters did here: jump into the problem without first trying to understand the real needs of the user. A clear demonstration of how limited we all are in understanding the needs of blind people is that a lot of answers don’t even mention smell, one of the most important sense for a blind person.
Great designers walk a mile in their audience’s shoes before even sketching their first drafts.
Describing the design process and how you would ensure your design reflects the state of the art is the way to go. If you want to have a crack at your design ideas, go ahead. But do it after you’ve described the process. By then, you’ve got your back covered for any silly mistakes or prejudices.
It is simple just design a spice rack with different shape of holes, which allows the jar with the matching shape to fit in. For example round jar to be used to store sugar, square jar to be used to store salt, triangle jar to be used to store pepper and oval jar to be used to store mustard and so on..
Think of two or three alternatives. Ask blind men for their feedback on each of these alternatives. Improve the prototypes iteratively.
Leave an Answer/Comment