Designing the Desk Cart
The perfect balance of function and versatility, our latest product created a new category. From custom drawer hitches to specialty zones, peel back the curtain to discover the design process that led us to the Desk Cart.
A Deeper Understanding
After taking desk organization to the limit with the Grovemade Desk and Desk Shelf systems, Ken and Sean stopped product development and went back to ground zero with home office research, this time with a total focus on the space beyond the desk. They examined more than 250 home offices from pictures customers sent, interviewed 8 customers through video chat, and culminated in visiting 7 customers’ home offices in person. Ken and Sean discovered a deeper understanding of our customers, products, and company and the new direction that will guide Grovemade’s product design for years to come.
Finding Our North Star
From the onset, Ken and Sean wanted to start with as blank a canvas as possible to truly build a product that came from the customer point of view. The combined findings from both Ken and Sean led to what we call our North Star, a foundational set of solutions to problems, principles, and product constraints that guide every aspect of our design.
KEN TOMITA (Grovemade Co-Founder): Home offices always look pristine on social media. But in reality, they rarely look like that.
SEAN KELLY (Lead Designer): Our customers were really open with us. They didn’t clean up. They didn’t prepare for our visit. We asked them to show us their workspace in the wild. And they did.
During the research, we saw a universal pain point. Customers struggled organizing the tools, objects, and equipment that wasn’t essential enough to live on the desk but necessary enough to be handy. It was clutter in the periphery; workspace hangnails that created dissonance. We saw dusty file cabinets as ad hoc desk extensions, acting as plinths for printers and scanners, drawers being used as a catch all for cords, and, in one instance, a home to a wastebasket. We saw unwieldy drawer systems that lived on swivel casters, filled with crafts and side projects, that hid in the closet, laying in wait to be rolled out like a once beloved toy that’s been forgotten.
In nearly every home office, we saw drawers with intricate organization that required careful dismantling to reach stuff in the back. In fact, many of our customers couldn’t tell us what was in their file cabinet drawers. Many dreamed of having L-shaped desks but lamented about the lack of square footage to fit such a large item.
KEN TOMITA (Grovemade Co-Founder): Once we determine a ubiquitous problem, we know we’re on to something special.
SEAN KELLY (Lead Designer): We zeroed in on the file cabinet and wondered how we could elevate it.
All file cabinets provided an uneven desktop extension. If the cabinet was flush with the desk’s edge, it created a dead space pit in the back. If the cabinet was pushed back, a line break in their workspace. To solve these problems right away, we decided to make the new product as deep and as tall as the standard desk height to eliminate dead space and to ensure a level and true extension of the desk.
Our desktop is a fairly standard 28" x 58". This meant that if we built the Desk Cart to live beside our desk, it would also fit nicely next to the majority of desks on the market. Since the product was going to be as deep as our desk, it couldn’t be a normal cabinet system. Fully extended, the drawer would look ridiculous.
KEN TOMITA (Grovemade Co-Founder): I think it was Sean who suggested we put it on wheels.
SEAN KELLY (Lead Designer): Deciding that customers could move the product felt like a huge relief, solving a set of seemingly impossible problems.
Since the product was going to be as deep as our desk, it couldn’t be a normal file cabinet system with drawers. Fully extended, the drawers would look ridiculous, so right away we decided against a traditional drawer system. We wondered how we could offer the ease of access with an open storage system and give customers the ability to stow the tools and items they didn’t want out in the open, we realized the Desk Cart had to be on wheels.
Putting the Desk Cart on wheels, we discovered we could build a shelving system that behaved like a drawer. With one ease pull, all of your tools, books, and items would be accessible, and with one ease push back into place, it could all be stowed neatly beside your desk.
KEN TOMITA (Grovemade Co-Founder): It made me think of kitchen pantries where you pull the whole thing out and all of your ingredients are there.
SEAN KELLY (Lead Designer): An added bonus of wheels, we realized, was that it could be pulled into place as a sort of interim L-shape desk.
With that, we landed on our North Star for the Desk Cart: sized to be the perfect desk sidekick offering storage without the shortcomings of a traditional drawer and mobility to provide more desk when you needed it.
The Right Kind of Mobility
While office furniture that swiveled appealed to a larger audience, seemingly more versatile in design, these systems produced an unpredictable user experience. Office furniture on swivel casters were left askance beside a desk or hidden completely inside a closet. To solve this problem, we took inspiration from large warehousing systems that maximized storage space and simultaneously provided ease of access.
KEN TOMITA (Grovemade Co-Founder): I remember as a youth working in the warehouse at Nike, we had these large storage bays on a track system drilled into the floor. They were effortless to move.
Whenever we’re faced with a decision between sacrificing a product’s integrity and building something totally custom, we always go custom. We opted for four wheels with steel bearings, housed in custom brackets for durability fixed beneath the cart. With parallel tracks, moving the Desk Cart gives the same gliding sensation that Ken experienced in the Nike warehouse.
At first, Sean considered using a long wheel that would traverse the width of the Desk Cart, but this would lead to instability if the floors weren’t perfectly even. We opted for four wheels with steel bearings, housed in custom brackets for durability fixed beneath the cart. The parallel tracks give the same gliding sensation that Ken experienced in the Nike warehouse.
We’re here to make the best product for the home office user even if that means sacrificing mass appeal.
KEN TOMITA
Co-Founder
With fixed wheels, the Desk Cart is able to have permanence in the home office without being permanent. It isn’t something that will be carted from room to room, but for those who share our vision, they’ll find it’s perfect for organizing all the stuff you need handy. The machine you use once a week. The stuff you used to hang on across the back of your chair.
Zones of Storage
It’s a delicate balance between function and versatility. Go too far in either direction and you’ll have a Desk Cart over concerned with features that it fails to be a useful tool or so stripped down it has no organizational structure. We needed “Zones” that suggested uses while remaining flexible to the innovative uses a customer might bring to the table.
SEAN KELLY (Lead Designer): A good product should inspire creativity. It shouldn’t force them into a certain way.
In the end, we landed on a total of 4 open storage zones, each a discrete size: for different things, for different uses, and for different needs.
With four, we believe everything is covered. Stow your backpack, purse, or satchel underneath in the large storage space. File folders, trade publications, and reference books can live in the medium storage space. Face out inspiring books or art on the leaning shelf. Stash the charger extension, aux cords, paper clips, binder clips, thumbtacks, in the big and small drawer. And, finally, there’s a place for your printer that is convenient and intentional on the top. Or leave the desktop empty for a clean look that naturally flows from desk to Desk Cart.
We Hold Drawers Accountable
A short list of drawer grievances: dead space in the back, encourages mindless organization, drawers often rack side to side, reveals ugly hardware when opened, the list goes on.
KEN TOMITA (Grovemade Co-Founder): If we're doing a drawer. we're doing it right.
SEAN KELLY (Lead Designer): As a rule for the Desk Cart we want everything to be accessible with one or two easy pulls.
Because the drawers we saw caused more problems than they solved we were resistant to having a drawer. However, in the design process we decided we needed to provide space for the stuff customers actually used and wanted to be near the desk but wasn’t big enough to live in an open zone.
To discourage random storage, it made sense for the drawer to be accessible only when the Desk Cart was pulled out. We want storing and accessing what’s inside to be a very intentional act. When you have something you want to hide right away, people typically go for a space that is immediately available. Because accessing the drawer takes two pulls, the Desk Cart drawer won’t be the go-to for random storage.
To really hammer home that point, Sean came up with a drawer that could go both ways, offering two drawers with different depths, each with specific machined cork insets, just like those found in the Grovemade desk. The different drawer depths with the insets encourages mindful organization for the extra aux cords, charger blocks, ink cartridges, stash of extra notepad paper, etc.
To discourage random storage, it made sense for the drawer to be accessible only when the Desk Cart was pulled out. We want storing and accessing what’s inside to be a very intentional act. When you have something you want to hide right away, people typically go for a space that is immediately available. Because accessing the drawer takes two pulls, the Desk Cart drawer won’t be the go-to for random storage.
To really hammer home that point, Sean came up with a drawer that could go both ways, offering two drawers with different depths, each with specific machined cork insets, just like those found in the Grovemade desk. The different drawer depths with the insets encourages mindful organization for the extra aux cords, charger blocks, ink cartridges, stash of extra notepad paper, etc.
Next, we went to town designing a system that hid the hardware of a drawer and found linear guides, components used for precision machinery, worked nicely. The hardware is compact enough to attach underneath the desktop while providing the low friction, highly accurate motion we were looking for. The hardware is strong enough so that no matter the weight inside the drawer and no matter where you pull or push from, it slides effortlessly.
In early iterations, we realized we needed a method for the drawer to give tactile feedback to the user when it was closed because it’s capable of opening in two directions. Sean drew inspiration from high-end hunting knives, especially the feeling they gave when they were opened and clicked into place. Instead of going stock, our manufacturing engineer, Ben, wanted to do one better and design a custom 3-D printed “detent” system that allowed the drawer to be easily opened, then fall into place when securely closing. This kind of system prevents the drawer from drifting open by using slight friction to stay closed. The custom detent mechanism and precision hardware gives using the drawer a satisfying and almost addictive tactile sensation.
The Roll Out
With this product we wanted to start with the problems that people face, even if they don’t realize they’re problems. The truth is that there is no such thing as out of sight out of mind. If there’s a drawer you don’t want to open because it’s a hassle to get what’s inside, we want to solve that problem. We hope people feel a surprising relief as the Desk Cart helps them bring organization to the spaces in their home office that once lived in hidden chaos.
I can truly say there's nothing else like this out there.
KEN TOMITA
Co-Founder
The Home Office System
Each product stands on its own. But together, they do something different. We know that your work spills beyond your desk. This is your chance to build the home office that fits you.
