Design a refrigerator for the blind.

My approach to this Google product design question:

Assumptions and clarifying questions

1. Can I assume that these blind people do not have other kinds of major disabilities? They can speak and hear? Yes
2. Can I also assume that budget is not a constraint and the main goal of this fridge is to have an amazing experience for blind people? Yes
3. Is there any specific problem that we want to solve through this fridge? You decide

Let me lay down my approach for this design question → First I will call out our users, then I will try to understand their needs. Based on those needs, I will come up with solutions. Finally, I will talk about our metrics to meet our set goals and wrap up.

Do you have any questions or shall I go ahead?

Let's talk about the users -

We are talking about blind people. These people could be falling into different age groups -

1. Young people < 18 yrs old.
2. Adults - 18 to 50 yr old.
3. Senior citizens - > 50 yrs old.

For this problem, I want to focus on adults because I think both young and seniors generally live with their caretakers and the normal fridge would also suffice. Adult blinds have a higher probability of being alone and therefore, it makes sense to focus on them.

Shall I go ahead with this user segment?

Let's understand the needs and desires of the adult blinds -

1. Able to take out items from the fridge with ease.

• I have a specific item in my mind.
• I want to explore my options.

2. Able to put items into the fridge with ease.

• Fruits/vegetables
• Milk and other items which can spill
• Packaged food items

3. Identify spoiled/expired items.
4. Need to know what items need to be bought.

From the above needs, the priority would be 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 reasons being that taking out and putting items are the most common interactions that happen with a fridge. Identifying spoiled/expired items would be useful especially for packaged items where it is difficult to figure out just by smell or touch. Planning the items to be purchased can even be done manually as even a blind person can remember when was the last time they went out shopping and what all items did they buy or at least they will have an idea about the replenishment time.

Let's try to build some solutions for the above needs(1,2 and 3) -

1. Take an item out -
a) Specific item in my mind → a button on the fridge to ask a question about the item's presence and its quantity through voice input.
b) I want to explore my options → User can say "Suggest me something to eat". Based on the items present inside and the time of the day, the fridge can come up with suggestions. We can also user eating habits into account.

Once the item is decided, the user can give confirmation to the fridge and the compartment containing the item will open up and ask the user to take the item out. If it's something, which can be spilled - the fridge will warn the user about it before opening it. There will be cameras inside the fridge to identify the items and the quantities inside each compartment.

2. Put items into the fridge - The user will keep one type of item at a time. The relevant compartment will open up and instruct the user to keep the items inside. How will the fridge identify which item is it? We can have an image scanner on the fridge and on scanning the item, the compartment will get opened.

3. Identify spoiled/expired items -

The same image scanner can read out the expiry date for the packaged food items. For other spoiled items, we can identify either through smell or by looking at them, or by touching them. The fridge camera can actively look for spoiled vegetables/fruits and alert the user to take some action. The alert should be triggered by the fridge when the user is interacting with the fridge.

To summarize, we tried to find solutions for 3 problems -

1. Take items out of the fridge.
2. Put items into the fridge.
3. Identify spoiled/expired items.

The solutions were -

1. Unique compartments for each item.
2. A voice assistant to get answers from the fridge and provide feedback to the user.
3. An AI algorithm to come up with smart suggestions
4. Cameras inside the fridge to find the items and their quantities.
5. Image scanner to identify items and their expiry dates which will open the relevant compartment while keeping items inside.
6. AI algorithm to identify spoiled food based on images recorded in-camera.

We can start with unique compartments and get those hardcoded during installation for the MVP along with the image scanner. AI algorithms can be built independently and should be easy to deploy. Finally, we can work on building a voice assistant along with cameras inside the fridge.

The metrics to measure the success would be - sales numbers, usage of features i.e. camera scanner and voice assistant, and how much time does each operation take, we will also need to look at the number of customer complaints.

Clarifications

• Could you clarify the 'blindness' of the target user? [Fully blind]
• Is the blind people living alone or with other non-blind family members? [Living alone]
• Will they have other blind or non-blind visitors? [Yes]
• Can I assume they are adults?[Yes]
• What's the price range that they can afford?[No limit, let's focus on user experience] 

• Blind user, who owns the frig, is the primary user, will handle the stocking and take things from the frig
• Blind visitor, who may take things from the frig
• Non-blind visitors, who may take things from the frig

1. As blind user, I would like to know what I'm holding before putting it into the frig.
2. As blind user, I would like to organize same kind of food into same location.
3. As blind user, I would like to easily find the food I'm looking for.
4. As blind user, I would like to easily find out how much is left for each kind of food.
5. As blind visitor, I would like to be able to find the food I'm looking for, even though I'm not familar with the location.
6. As non-blind visitor, I would like to be able to take food out of the frig.

1. Blind user doesn't know what he is holding when putting food into the frig, as PEPSI and COKE migh feel exactly the same. Salt and Sugar bottle are also identical in shape.
2. Blind user has to allocate and remember where to put each type of food, and where to get them.
3. Blind user has to manually touch and count to get how many units of each kind of food is remaining in the frig

1. [Barcode Reader]Integrate a bar-code reader, which can scan the bar-code and read out the corresponding food name by search for the bar-code. This can mitigate pain point #1.
2. [Magnetic Tags] Provide a set of magnetic tags with common food names and steel plates on the side of each layer, which blind user can use to tag each layer what food is stocked here. This can mitigate pain point #2 for blind users, can also allow blind visitor to access the food in the frig.
3. [Tracking button]Along side the bar-code scanner, provide 2 buttons, Press 1 when putting items, press the other when getting items from the frig. Label them with both blind text and normal text. This can help to keep track of how many units of a certain kind of food is available in the frig. This helps with pain point #3. To allow access, we can provide a voice interface for user to ask: "what do I have in the frig" or "how many beers do I have in the frig"
4. [Smart Allocation] Allow frig to allocate which layer to stock a certain kind of food, either a new layer, or an existing layer, and inform the user through voice. It can also tell me where to find a certain kind of food when user asks "Where can I find beer"? This helps with pain point #2. This can also allow visitors to access the food.
5. [Visual Tracker] Similar to Amazon Go, add a camera to track what you put into the frig, or what you have taken out. This can mitigate both pain point #2 and #3.

I would like to prioritize the features based on 1) User Impact 2)Effort 3)Feasibility