Minimalist Design of Oven Products Based on Differences in User Needs

At present, the oven has become a popular electrical product for home life，and its appearance design is based on a minimalist style, pursuing the purity of appearance and streamlining of functions. However, different users have different perceptions of the simplicity and ease of use of the oven design, which may lead to differences in aesthetic preferences and design requirements, which in turn may lead to varying degrees of use obstacles and poor experience. How to grasp the "degree" of Minimalist Design to meet the differentiated needs of more users? It is the main problem of oven design at this stage. However, the method researches of related Minimalist Design are mostly theoretical reference and lack practical guiding significance. Therefore, this article will focus on the concept of Minimalist Design, combined with multi-level demand theory and Analytic Hierarchy Process, to explore the differences in users’ aesthetic preferences for minimalist oven design, construct a multi-level structural model of user needs, obtain the importance of user needs, and summarize differentiated minimalist oven designs methods. First, hot-selling ovens were selected as the research objects; compared the relative simplicity difference of each two products , a difference matrix was obtained; Multi-Dimensional Scaling Analysis, Cluster Analysis, and K-means Clustering were applied, the simplicity of ovens was classified and each category Typical products were obtained as simple prototypes; questionnaire surveys and statistical tests were used, the characteristics of the user groups of each prototype were obtained; based on the concept of Minimalist Design, user interviews and other methods were applied, the simplicity of users on three levels of stable performance, smooth interaction, and minimalist appearance Design demand factors were obtained; finally, the Analytic Hierarchy Process was applied, a hierarchical model of simple design factors were constructed, the weight of needs of each user group was obtained, and the differentiated design methods were summarized. As a result, a total of 12 hot-selling ovens were selected; a total of 3 minimalist prototypes ABC were obtained, The user group of prototype A is dominated by young women in higher education, prototype B is dominated by middle-aged women in secondary education, and prototype C is dominated by the elderly; a multi-level structure model of user needs was constructed, and The weight of the needs of the 3 user groups were obtained; based on the importance of the needs of each group, the targeted minimalist oven design methods were proposed. Therefore, the method which is based on the theory of multi-level needs and applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process, to construct a multi-level structure model of user needs can clarify the characteristics and design needs of different user groups, and improve the effectiveness and practical significance of the Minimalist Design of the oven. This method can provide a reference for enterprises and designers.