Soft-Stir
Stir Your Ice Cream To Perfection
The Soft-Stir is designed to be the ideal spoon for stirring hard-served ice cream into the perfect soft-serve consistency.
Its straight smooth edges allow for it to stir the ice cream with ease, and enhance the ice cream eating experience.
The handle is made out of a shaped and treated African Red Heart to give the spoon an elevated look.
Stir, Eat, Enjoy.
Process:
When I began the prototyping process for the Soft-Stir I wanted to start with multiple quick prototypes. These plastic spoons, which I shaped with a hot knife, served as a form study and allowed me to see which shapes worked the best.
During my second round of prototyping, I took what I learned to create 3 wooden forms and tested them each with 3 different users. For this test, I looked at how fast it took each user to stir the ice cream, as well as how much they enjoyed using the spoon to stir and eat off of.
For my last round of prototyping, I created metal versions, that way the results would be as close to a final product as possible. I utilized the data from the last round to create designs that reflected what was most effective and tested them the same way. During this round, I also had a control spoon (a traditional spoon design) as a way to see if the traditional design worked better.
After my last round of prototyping, I found that while the flat top design had a better overall average time, it was not the overall favorite. The rounded top with the flat sides, while slightly slower than the flat top design, was the overall favorite of those who tested all the spoons because they enjoyed the combination of how fast it was to stir the ice cream with how easy/nice it was to eat off of the best.
