PARTICIPANT INFORMATION

Yoan, 26, married, Project Manager from Albania

Simon, 36, single, Art Director from Sweden

Lina, 25, single, Artist from Sweden

METHOD

Twenty common kitchen or office-kitchen items were written on individual slips of paper and shuffled.

Fork, Cooking oil, Bowl, Microwave, Tea bags, Coffee filter, Milk, Cup, Dish soap, Table, Chair, Knife, Spoon, Mug, Flour, Eggs, Wine, Blender, Juicer, Napkins

Participants were instructed on the goal of the exercise, with explicit clarification that the facilitator would not participate. Beyond identifying the set as “kitchen items,” no further guidance was provided. The group was asked to work together to organize the items into categories.

RESULTS

KITCHEN APPLIANCES

Microwave

Blender

Juicer

DISHES + DETERGENT

Fork

Bowl

Cup

Knife

Spoon

Dish soap

Mug

INGREDIENTS

Wine

Milk

Cooking oil

Eggs

Flour

KITCHEN FURNITURE

Chair

Table

PAPER ITEMS

Coffee filter

Tea bags

Napkins

The rationale behind the organization was primarily functionality, a thought made more interesting by the fact that all participants considered themselves either average or below-average when it came to cooking and grocery shopping experience.

The project manager, who is married and whose wife does the cooking and grocery shopping, exerted the most authority in this exercise, at least in the context of practicality.

The artists, both single and accustomed to cooking and shopping for themselves, focused on the balance and proportionality across categories, expressing dissatisfaction with the uneven distribution.

DISCUSSION

Participants explored potential sorting strategies, including:

• Shape (e.g., grouping by physical form)

• Material (e.g., metal, ceramic, paper)

• Function (e.g., use in cooking vs. use in dining)

• Spatial placement (e.g., “things you would find in a drawer”)
  

Yoan noted that in Eastern Europe, grouping by material is common, while the Swedish participants preferred grouping by function or shape. Lina suggested spatial organization (“things found in a drawer”), but this was countered by Yoan and Simon, who observed that even appliances like blenders could technically be stored in drawers.

The group unanimously paired “chair” and “table,” though no further items were easily associated with furniture. Dish soap, coffee filters, tea bags, and napkins posed the greatest challenge, with dish soap ultimately placed alongside the paper items with some hesitation.

At the conclusion, Yoan solicited feedback. Simon remarked: “Feels disproportionate.” This reflected his discomfort with uneven group sizes, which aligned with his artistic perspective. Yoan responded that functionality mattered more than balance, though he suggested that “groups of importance” could provide an alternative organizing principle.

CONCLUSION

The artists were overall concerned about the uneven distribution while the project manager maintained that functionality was important, which everyone eventually agreed upon. Despite differences in perspective, all participants agreed the final categorization was logical and consistent, and all felt above-average in their confidence that they would know what to expect when walking into a kitchen that wasn’t theirs. They maintained their arrangement would have been the same if building a website.