Usability testing of coffee machines

The usability evaluation of websites and apps has become commonplace in the recent years. However, it is also important to evaluate physical products for UX and usability. In various projects, we have examined drafts of the screen interactions of full automatic coffee machines or various existing machines with regard to certain criteria.

Unfortunately, for confidentiality reasons, we cannot go into details here. But the example of a coffee machine shows the different requirements such a system can have. After all, service employees have different requirements for a machine than consumers. Seniors, visually impaired people and foreign-speaking tourists have different requirements than young Swiss people. Not only getting a coffee can be a "task", also cleaning it quickly, easily and hygienically. Does the physical environment, for instance cup sizes and shape, resemble the image on the display? Is the display easy to read even in sunlight? These and other aspects can be essential factors that have an influence on the user experience and therefore on the market success of physical products as well.

Possibilities for evaluating physical products.

Even simple paper or cardboard prototypes and mockups can provide useful clues for product development without having already invested much in development. In the development process, it is still important that functional prototypes are evaluated with (potential) users. Larger things, such as industrial machines or apparatus, could also be evaluated with virtual technologies today.