Assignment #2 - William Cai - Fork-Chop

Description of product
This product is called a ‘fork-chop’. It is simply a combination of a fork and a pair of chopsticks. While eating a meal, the user can conveniently switch between using a chopstick and using a fork by rotating the fork-chop.

Relative advantage
There is a relative advantage because the fork-chop is an improvement upon both a single fork and a single pair of chopsticks. There is potentially an improvement in efficiency and improved output because some foods are consumed more easily using a fork and others are consumed more easily using chopsticks, but the fork-chop allows the user to use both with just one utensil. However, this may only be a perceived advantage because in reality it could be inconvenient to constantly rotate an utensil, compared to having two different utensils that you can pick up with either hand.

Compatibility
The fork-chop is definitely consistent with the values and norms of society. Almost everybody uses forks or chopsticks to eat food, in addition to other utensils such as spoons and knives. The fork-chop is simply another distinct utensil used for consuming food.

Adaptability (re-inventability)
The fork-chop can be adapted to new purposes by changing the two individual utensils it is made out of. For example, instead of a fork and a pair of chopsticks it could be adapted to be a fork and a spoon, which would be useful in societies where chopsticks are uncommon. Another example could be in restaurants that serve soup next to a meal, where a spoon would be more useful.

Observability
The results of this technology are pretty easily visualized. If you saw somebody using this product you could immediately see how it differs and the ways that it could benefit the user. However, a potential issue is that people could consider the impact to be low, because it is not that much different from having one fork and one chopstick separately.

Will it be adopted?
I think that overall this product definitely has the potential to be adopted, when considering the above analysis. There is a relative advantage of using it over individual utensils, no issues with compatibility or observability, and potential for adaptability. However, there are also some significant issues with the product (discussed below), which detract from the usefulness of the product. Hence, I feel that make the fork-chop would be adapted slowly, if at all.

Design errors and suggested improvements
The main issue with the fork-chop is that when you rotate it to use the other side, food residue may drip down onto your hand. This is a significant problem and would make the fork-chop extremely inconvenient to use. In addition, there are many situations where it would actually be easier to use two separate utensils. Consider, for example, the cutting of a steak. One would rather use a fork and a knife separately than a utensil that combines the two because of how inconvenient it would be to rotate the two-sided utensil. With these inconveniences the fork-chop becomes a lot less likely to be adapted, especially when considering that it is also currently not that difficult to just use two separate utensils. One possible solution to this could be to make the two parts of the utensil detachable, which would mitigate both of the above issues and possibly increase the chance of adoption.