My roommate recently received a Blendtec blender as a gift. The blender is advertised with many features, such as whipping ice cream, batter, and soup. Our bananas browned before we got to them and for this journal, I set out to make banana bread and put this blender to the test.
This Blendtec has six settings that are afforded by small pictures. They include a whisk, presumably for batters. A margarita glass is featured, likely for frozen drinks while a cup with a straw is illustrated for smoothies. An ice cream cone clearly displays the ice cream setting, followed by a carrot for juice. The final setting is a steaming bowl of soup. Above these, there are three more controls afforded with a plus sign, a minus sign, and a heartbeat sign.
These controls are all easily learnable, meaning they are easy to interpret during first use. The graphics are simple outlines against a contrasting background making them easy to interpret. Going into this task, my mental model of how these controls worked was simple. When I pressed one of the settings, I expected them to start blending in whatever pace and direction was programmed for them. For the plug and minus control, I expected them to increase or decrease the pace at my command. Finally, for the heartbeat sign, I expected to be able to pulse the blender while it was at rest by holding it down and then releasing it. This mental model was based on my previous experience using different blenders and similar products
I began my task by loading all the ingredients into the blender, unmixed. Once sealed, I pressed the batter setting and let it run for a while. The blender was making no progress so the lid was removed and I mixed some of the ingredients that were untouched to the bottom. When restarting the blender, I tried the heartbeat control and it worked as I predicted. So far, the conceptual model of the blender, meaning the way the system actually works had lined up perfectly with my mental model.
After using the heartbeat control, my roommate accidentally pressed the margarita setting. While I’m unsure if this would have negatively affected our outcome, it wasn’t our intended action. Luckily, this mistake was easily recoverable as pressing the button again stopped the blender and we were able to continue with the correct setting. Once we reached our desired conscience, we stopped the blender and removed the batter.
Overall, the batter setting on this blender was disappointing and rather inconvenient to use. While this blender setting was effective, it was not efficient. We accomplished the task we set out to but we had to stop multiple times to stir the mixture to help the blender work properly. Additionally, cleaning the blender was far harder than it would've been to clean a mixing bowl. If we had mixed our batter by hand, we likely would have finished our cooking quicker with fewer struggles along the way. Unfortunately, I do not have any suggestions for this setting in particular. I don’t think it is programmed poorly but rather the blender itself and its blades are constructed in an inconvenient and nonfunctional manner. Besides redesigning the entire blender, I do not believe there is much that could improve the functionality of this setting.
