Identify the Problem: The main observee lives in a 6th floor walk up in Harlem and orders a fair amount of amazon packages or deliveries that accumulate boxes in her apartment. When it comes to discarding the boxes, New York City guidelines require buildings to flatten and breakdown cardboard before disposal. Although not a requirement for all building tenants, it’s a golden rule and/or common courtesy for tenants to fulfill the cardboard guidelines prior to leaving it in the recycling receptacles of their properties. This creates a problem for the observee as the accumulation of boxes make it difficult to carry at once and causes multiple trips to transport them to the recycling on the ground floor of her building. By making several trips to the recycling bins, it is time consuming and exhausting.
Describe and Define the Problem: The population of New York City is 8.4 million. According to the NYTimes, approximately 25% of this total live in walk ups with more than four floors. Concurrently, around 1.5 million packages are delivered daily in New York City. But what does all, if not most, New Yorkers have to endure in their daily lives? Each New Yorker is required to (and frowned up if they don’t) break down their delivery boxes and transport them to the community recycling receptacles of their building or property. Although a portion of the population live in walk ups, it is still a burden for New Yorkers to carry their boxes (whether in their elevator or down the hall) to the main trash area of their building. Other than taking multiple trips to the trash area, or being diligent in immediate discarding, tenants also have the alternative of recruiting their roommates or companions, but this isn’t always an option. If the establishment has a luggage or utility cart, this can also be a source to support tenants but an inconvenience to pick up.
Empathy and Problem Validation: This problem is scalable to apartment buildings or individual households outside of New York City. Online shopping is increasing to become more than 25% of retail sales worldwide. With internet phenomena like Cyber Monday, this will only continue to further this ratio as shoppers become more inclined to digital sales. The New Yorker Walk-Up audience is of primary interest for this initial prototype as they are the user that faces the most physically laboring experience of box consolidation and travel. I’ve witnessed this single household tenant wait too long to remove the boxes from their apartment until it creates clutter in their small NYC size apartment. And when finally tasked to take out the boxes, there are too many to carry at once and they are forced to take 2-3 trips to carry the boxes down the stairs. The primary audience I’ve been observing over the last few weeks is in their thirties. Imagine all the people in New York who don’t have the physical advantage such as the elderly, disabled, or younger folks who help with house errands. Taking multiple trips is already tolling for the average abled individual, and a solution to be able to easily carry boxes can be profound beyond this population!
Solution: The solution is a Swiss Army Box Cutter. Similar to a swiss army knife, the Swiss Army Box Cutter is a multi-utility box cutter specifically designed to breakdown boxes and consolidate multiple boxes to carry them at once. One side of the product is the box cutter itself. The other side of it is a retractable bungee cord with a hook that can be wrapped around the boxes, and hooked to the other end of the tool to secure it. The base of the tool is sturdy enough to be able to carry a heavy weight of boxes.
