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Water Dispenser for French Door Refrigerator

Water Dispenser for French Door Refrigerator

Aybars Senyildiz
February 24, 2017
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This is an inhouse design project in order to be competitive in the white goods market. Vestel company wanted to add water dispensers to their high-end refrigerators. Water dispensers on doors of refrigerators filtrates the water coming from the mains water system, chills the water, and dispenses chilled water for drinking. During the design process, I wanted to add details which will improve use scenario and ergonomic quality of the component, but company prefered an unsophisticated design to lower the risks. Thus we ended up with a water dispenser design which is generic, simple and suitable with the brand identity.



The final product has a linear/simple design, and an attractive transparent spout/led area. This spout area emits light and water seems fresher when it is illuminated. This creates a perception of hygiene. Moreover you can see your cup at dark thanks to led light.

Design is kept simple because Vestel White Goods' brand identity has a simple design language for European market. Special grey color which is suitable with Inox material used on refrigerators were chosen. To create a high-end look and to create a metallic look(because 'metal' equals 'hygiene'), design has a stripe which is coated with Metallic Hot Stamp.


Generally I prefer to have long research periods in my projects. First, I start with a general literature research on market and product (or component). Then I think about the use scenario to find possible problems to solve. For this project I used simple scenario drawings, mindmaps, and customer reviews.

After my researches, I realized that people don't only use glass cups to get water from the dispenser. They use long bottles, wide bottles, pans for cooking, etc. And generally water dispensers are not suitable for most of "other" containers.

The second problem I realized was that: users can't see the spout (the pipe where water comes out) while they get water from the dispenser because the spout is in a hollow space and blocked the door surface.

When you dig, you see more problems in use scenario; you can't see water while filling inside a opaque cup, you can't locate the cup in space because you can't see the spout, you need to bend your neck to get water because the dipenser's height is low etc. These problems are waiting to be solved because the constraints of this in-house project did not let me to solve these problems. At least I noted these problems with my scenario drawings and I sketched ideas of "expandable drip tray surface for the pans which have wide bases" , and "detachable spout which can be cleaned or changed for hygiene".

I sketched my ideas with pens and markers initially. Sometimes I made digital sketches with Autodesk Sketcbook Pro. After the ideation process, I modelled the products in Rhinoceros 3D software, and I rendered the models with Vray for 3D max software. Finally, retouches of renders were made with Adobe Photoshop.






The led-light effect refracting from the transparent spout created a charm for the water dispenser. Its light improved the use scenario too. Its simple design made it like a "not designed" product, which is a success.

During the user scenario research in this project, I realized that the products that we use everyday have many unsolved problems. The fact that we are getting used to these problems make them invisible. To see these "invisible" problems you need to think outside the box, you need to think like an "extra-terrestial creature observing the earth and the two-legged creatures on it".

Aybars Senyildiz

Graduated from Industrial Design Programme of Middle East Technical University in 2014. Post graduate student at Izmir Technology Institute. In-house product designer at Vestel White Goods Company.
Moreover; Surrealist artist. Poet. Drummer. Reader. Traveller. Owns a black cat.

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