BoP Product Design & Testing in Urban Spaces Volume 2: User Feedback and Insights

The following is part of an ongoing blog series from the Rural Market Insight team at the Centre for Development Finance, IFMR.

One month and 5 household visits later, the Rs. 100 ($2USD) regulator prototype is still strong and functional with some minor wear and tear. One of the biggest unknowns in user testing is whether or not the family will use the product given to them. The answer, in this case, was a definite 'Yes'. The family has used it for every cooked meal (twice a day for approximately 2 hours/meal since it was deployed).

The family’s overall response to the regulator has been very positive, which also explains their willingness to continue using it. The family freely commented that the stove did not produce as much smoke as before, and that it was easier to light. They also pointed out that the wall behind the stove has remained cleaner than it typically does between cleanings (as gauged by the number of soot-covered cobwebs visible on the wall).

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Although these sound like glowing reviews, it is important for designers to remember that, when conducting user-testing, the results are inevitably biased to some degree or other. Sometimes people tell you what they think you want to hear. Sometimes the very act of participating in a product test makes the user perceive their environment differently. Without conducting rigorous scientific testing using air quality monitors to verify the perceptions, the next step must be to test the product with a larger sample of users.

Behavior Modification: Changing the way the user cooks
If the goal is to lower barriers to adopting cleaner biofuel stove technology, companies have to be very careful not to force the users to radically change the way they cook. In Southern India, it is common for families to let the firewood ash build-up within the stove for a few days before removing it. However, when cooking with a regulator, this user habit greatly reduces the efficiency as air is unable to feed the fire from underneath. In order for our regulator to work properly, the users have to modify their behavior and remove the ash from the stove every time they want to cook. It took our test family approximately 2 weeks to break this habit, but only after we gave them instructions on the importance of removing the ash.

The only inconvenience the family voiced about the regulator was that, because it took up some space in their chulha, it limited the amount of wood they usually placed in the stove at any one time. As inconveniences go, this isn’t necessarily a negative one, but it does come dangerously close to interfering with their traditional cooking methods.

Urban testing
In tying-back to our theory that urban households can provide relevant design insights on rural-focused BoP products, this family was more than helpful. They were actively engaged in the user test and gave us insights into their cooking practices, including fuel usage and views on indoor smoke. Although they didn’t volunteer any design modifications of the regulator, they allowed us free access to monitor their use of the product. The overall conclusion so far is that this urban family, who cooks traditional Southern Indian cuisine on a wood-burning stove, provided enough relevant feedback for us to consider some slight design changes to future iterations of the regulator.

Coming soon! While we continue with this regulator project, we have also begun urban testing on the new D.light Kiran solar lantern, and have just finished a 6-week test of Prakti Design’s Leo Double-Pot stove. Stay tuned for new posts.

Click on these links read more about this Urban Spaces series and the prelude to this post, Background, Prototyping #1.

This series follows the activities of two researchers as they design, prototype and/or conduct user-testing of new and existing Base-of-Pyramid (BoP) consumer energy products among low-income urban households in Chennai. The theory is that urban spaces can be used to gain relevant design insights and user feedback on rural-targeted BoP products due to its rich diversity and ease for researchers and designers to quickly turn those insights into functional design changes.

Selvan Thandapani and Richard Woodbridge are researchers for the Rural Market Insight team at the Centre for Development Finance, IFMR, located in Chennai, India. http://www.ifmr-cdf.in/