Industry
Smart Home
Company
GE Appliances
Duration
10 Months
Smart Cooking HMI
Designing a modular touchscreen interface that brings clarity, control, and discoverability to GE’s smart induction cooktops.
Context
With knobs being replaced by touchscreens, GE Appliances set out to rethink how people control their cooktops. I joined the team to help design the interface for a new generation of induction appliances.
Problem
Touchscreen cooktops promise more flexibility, but many users found them confusing and hard to trust.
Pain Point
While we dug deeper, we discovered that the confusion stemmed not just from the screen itself — but from a fragmented task flow, unclear system states, and scattered entry points that broke users’ mental models.
Design Solution & Impact
Impact
The final design brought together months of iteration across UX, visual, and systems design — and solved for more than just usability.
01
Streamlined Precision Cooking flow
Removed unnecessary steps like cookware selection to reduce friction and keep users focused, cutting task time by 60%
02
Increased confidence and clarity
80% of users reporting they felt more “in control” during complex cooking tasks
03
Created a scalable card system
Clearly communicate what’s running, across a hybrid physical–digital interface
User Quotes
— User after testing the new Precision Cooking flow
— User after testing redesigned burner and temperature feedback
— User reacting to the new scalable card system
Where It All Began
Research & Insights
Discovery Phase
To uncover early pain points, we conducted a remote questionnaire with 84 participants — primarily beginner to intermediate home cooks, many of whom had experience with traditional or hybrid cooktops. We focused on three areas:
01
Cooking habits
02
Smart feature awareness
03
Expectations for digital interfaces
Research Findings
65% of users said the interface lacked clear instructions
70% couldn’t find the Precision Cooking entry point
82% didn’t know how to use Precision Cooking
76% found mixing physical and digital controls confusing
Design Challenge One
How might we make heat levels and cooking progress more understandable?
Issue
Early research revealed a recurring theme: users struggled to understand what was happening on the cooktop at any given moment.
Without a clear mental model of what was “on,” “heating up,” or “done,” users were left guessing — a serious problem in real-time cooking.
Design
Our design response was to define distinct visual states for each phase of the cooking process, ensuring users could quickly grasp:
01
What’s currently active
02
How far along they are
03
What happens next
Design Challenge Two
How might we improve the discoverability of Precision Cooking — so users don’t miss out on powerful features?
Issue
Despite being one of the most powerful features on the cooktop, it was often overlooked or abandoned because of confusing flows and fragmented entry points.
Design
To address this, we restructured the Precision Cooking flow to be contextual, linear, and integrated directly into the burner interaction. Users could:
01
Access the feature at the right time
While turning on a burner
02
Skip redundant screens
Like cookware selection, and focus only on essential actions
03
Understand each step more clearly
With reduced complexity and improved UI cues
Design Challenge Three
How might we make it easy for users to instantly see what’s running — even in a hybrid interface with knobs and screens?
Issue
Users need to understand what’s running at a glance — especially in hybrid physical-digital environments. This means not just simplifying flows, but also surfacing status in real time through the UI.
Design
As we explored more complex use cases — like users managing both the cooktop and oven simultaneously — it became clear we needed a more scalable system to surface real-time status.
Final Design & Learnings
Learnings
