METAPROJECT 12
How do you prepare for being unprepared?
Senior Studio's Metaproject at RIT is built on the principle of design ambiguity. There's no listed class theme, no declared subject that the class is going to be about - until the second day of class. This year, Metaproject brought in cat litter box aficionados Modkat to be our client as we individually designed improvements to the cat litter box market.
The Research: Getting to know the users
When this project was pitched to us I immediately knew that I had no previous experience with this user base - I'd grown up in a family that was all allergic to cats - and that I would need to get my feet on the ground with real cats, cat owners, and people with steak in the market. I visited Rochester's own Purrs and Paws Cat Cafe, interviewed 3 cat owners, and did a survey of the current cat product market.
The Areas of Opportunity: Ideation
In my research, I identified a fascinating difference in process between multiple-cat owners and single-cat owners - owners with more than one cat tended to use sifting systems to get rid of waste from their litter boxes, while single-cat owners opted to scoop litter boxes the old fashioned way. The area of opportunity here became clear as I learned that there were many new consumers in the market - 1/8th of the market is a “new owner” - and willing to try new things.
Here, I integrated my engineering know how - what if we used the engineered processes current automated litter boxes use to clean our litter boxes?
How can we improve sifting such that more users are willing to adopt the practice?
Based on research and targeting a specific area of opportunity, I was able to identify this as my problem statement.
After a check in with Modkat, my path was given the green light. From there I created a full-scale "works like" cardboard mock up to ensure that my idea would work as intended. With a few modifications, I progressed to creating a final model.
