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Considering cooking tasks
from a different angle...
OXO receives hundreds of product
ideas each year from consumers, inventors, chefs, relatives and
friends. An idea sent to us in 1998 by two toy developers really
caught our eye.
 How many times have you filled a liquid
measuring cup, checked the side measurement markings, poured some
out, checked again, added some more, etc. until you have just the
right amount? Recognizing this accepted behavior as potential for
improvement, the toy developers at Bang Zoom Design in Cincinnati,
Ohio came up with an idea for a measuring cup that can be viewed
from the top down. They presented their product idea to OXO in the
form of an opaque plastic prototype they made themselves.
 OXO teamed with Smart Design to further develop
this patented product concept. It was important that the primary
benefit of the cup - being able to view it from above - was readily
apparent to users. So the team explored methods of manufacturing the
cup in a transparent material to enable the user to immediately see
the angled ramp with measurement markings inside. Using a
transparent material allowed us to put important measurement
markings (cups and ounces in the U.S.) on the opaque ramp visible
from above, and less frequently used markings (such as metric
measurements in the U.S.) on the side of the cup. And we further
tailored the cup for our international customers by putting their
most pertinent measurement markings on the opaque ramp.
 Certainly accuracy is the most important feature
of a measuring cup. While developing our cups, OXO was surprised to
learn that many measuring cups on the market are inaccurate. In our
effort to make our Angled Measuring Cups accurate, we contacted the
New York City Department of Consumer Affairs Testing Lab to make
sure we were using the most accurate equipment and techniques to
calibrate our cups. OXO engineers spent hours in our testing lab
using scientific graduated cylinders and high-precision height
gauges to make sure that each measurement marking is
precise.
OXO's Angled Measuring Cups are currently available
in 4-cup, 2-cup, 1-cup and Mini (1/4 cup) sizes and are some of the
fastest selling products in our history. They have won awards
ranging from the Good Housekeeping Good Buy Award to the IDSA
Industrial Design Excellence Award. Contact us if you
have an innovative product idea; maybe your invention will be the
next big hit!
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