Outdoor Cooking, Evolved

Transformed the grilling experience by harnessing the power of IoT across diverse fuel sources—electric, gas, and pellets—while introducing an innovative electric pizza oven that redefined outdoor cooking!

Context

Who was the audience, and how did they benefit?

  • Audience

    • Anyone who loves to cook outdoors, from the US to the EU.

    • Young and old, experienced and novice grillers, and pizza lovers.

  • Primary benefits

    • The ability for cooks to monitor the cooking progress away from the grill or oven.

    • Unique recipes and a guided process to perfect a long smoke, or make sure your party doesn’t go hungry.

    • Increased opportunities for the business to partner with celebrity chefs and gain market share in a competitive industry.

What was my role?

I served as the lead Product Designer. For a brief period, I collaborated and directed one other designer. My responsibilities included:

  • Early user research and concept creation.

    • Feature prioritization through surveying, user testing, and collaboration.

    • Storyboarding.

  • UX and UI creation and direction.

  • Collaboration with Product Owners across multiple brands.

  • Collaboration with internal and external software engineers.

  • Usability testing and reporting.

  • Physical device testing.

What was the timeline?

This project’s total timeline was a little over two years. That’s not because we had time as a luxury, but because we had the opportunity to provide a wide range of benefits to the market and user:

  • Launching multiple innovative products to the market.

  • Scaling the app across multiple global, distinct but related brands.

  • Complex Bluetooth and WiFi hardware integrations.

  • Apple Watch and Smart Home integrations.

  • Multi-language support.

  • Multiple rounds of user research and market testing.

  • ADA Level AA Compliance.

What were some tradeoffs?

Did everything go perfect? Of course not. When the rubber met the road we made tradeoffs. At times the hardware needed to change to support the interactions, and at times the interactions needed to change to support the hardware. Through this and other hardware projects, I learned:

  • Hardware has real deadlines, and they need to be met to successfully launch a physical product.

  • The sooner software can inform the hardware, the more likely a specific interaction can be supported.

  • The user experience is somewhat limited by what the hardware will allow. The software can only be a workaround, not a solution, if it’s not ready at the hardware level.