PRODUCT DESIGN, USER RESEARCH

IN-SINK DISHWASHER

Reimagining the contemporary dishwasher, integrating user-driven insights to address ergonomic inefficiencies, spatial waste & outdated assumptions in home appliance design.

PROBLEM:

Home appliances are designed around assumptions that quietly stopped being true — about who does the dishes, how kitchens are used, and how much space a household can spare. Conventional dishwashers encode those assumptions in their form. But "outdated" was a hypothesis, not a finding. The real question was what actually frustrates people day to day, and that couldn't be answered from a design chair.

APPROACH:

I ran a survey across a range of ages, genders, and lifestyles to find where existing models actually break down. Four pain points surfaced consistently: cycle times and capacities so large that users had to plan their day around the machine; placement away from the sink, which turns every load into a mess across the kitchen floor; the physical strain of bending to load and unload; and the substantial footprint sitting idle most of the day. Integrating the dishwasher directly into the sink addresses three of those at once — the transfer distance disappears, loading happens at counter height instead of floor level, and the appliance stops claiming dedicated space it doesn't continuously need. Every formal decision traces back to a specific finding rather than an aesthetic preference.

OUTCOME:

Recognized in the Dezeen Annual 2020. More useful than the award: the project demonstrates a full research-to-solution loop, where the design brief was written by users rather than assumed.

SCHOOL:    The Portfolio Center

TEACHER:   Hank Richardson

AWARDS:    Dezeen Annual 2020