On-The-Go Scissors

Portioning Scissors for Meal Prep | OXO tot

On-the-go scissors that help with portioning and preparing food for baby-led weaning. This product was released in September 2025. Design Licensed by OXO.

Mealtime Confidence

Utensils for Early Self-Feeding

The OXO tot On the Go Food Scissors were designed by ELEVEN for OXO. They are the result of thorough user research and studies conducted to explore how parents are engaging with the baby-lead weaning philosophy to help guide their child's learning and early development.

I designed this pair of scissors and travel case over the course of two years while I was an industrial designer at ELEVEN, a design firm with 3 decades of delivering thoughtful, user-centered designs to consumers around the world.

Design Lead: Aidan Rosario

Design Support: Phill Seagram, Lea Glander

Project Manager: Mike McDuffee

Mechanical Engineering: Doug Marsden

Baby-Led Weaning

Expanding OXO's Presence

Baby-Led Weaning is a childhood nutrition philosophy that encourages parents to let their infants feed themselves. The practice pairs food types, consistencies, and bite sizes with age ranges that are appropriate for each developmental stage (usually 6mo-2yrs). By learning to feed themselves, children improve agency to eat as much or as little as they like, increased opportunities to develop hand coordination and wrist dexterity, and a stronger sense of independence and confidence around mealtime.

New Product Suite

OXO tot — Released Sept. 2025

Beloved household brand OXO approached ELEVEN llc. in 2022 to develop a line of tools and utensils for OXO tot's expansion into Baby-Led Weaning. Informed by a deep market audit, our team developed a pair of Travel Scissors, a Crinkle Cutter, a silicone Textured Plate, and three distinct utensils designed to match the unique needs of Baby-Led Weaning's philosophy and approach.

Cut Down to Size

Food-prep Needs

Our qualitative research and interviews revealed that many parents who practiced baby-led weaning need a way to prepare and portion food away from the home. Using kitchen shears to slice snacks, meal-prepped items, or even takeout and fast food is not uncommon. However, unwieldy shears are not purpose built for on-the-go prep work, and parents are left without a way to contain mess and slice comfortably near their young children.

Storage and BLW Use

Exploratory Ideation

We explored dozens of potential avenues for innovation for OXO, each tackling a range of user pain points we identified from our in house research and long-term studies conducted by outside consultants. Through these early sketch ideations we narrowed our development down to a three-part system of utensils that help ease infants into learning mealtime fundamentals.

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Concept 1

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Concept 2

Format and Fit

Prototyping for Downselection

I quickly prototyped a few early concept directions to test initial assumptions and help narrow the scope of our continued exploration. Testing use cases, cutting angles, and desired range-of-motion for the blades allowed us to direct our focus away from the asymmetrical format and established an acceptable scale for the scissor handles.

Grip Details

Exploration and Refinement

To ensure the level of comfort and ease-of-use in line with OXO's human-centered brand identity, we pursued dozens of avenues for improving small scissor ergonomics. Hollow flexible cavities, fins, and partial substrates were all investigated as a means to make these the most comfortable scissors in your kitchen drawer.

Ergonomic Refinement

Prototyping and Evaluation

We applied quick-curing sillicone to FDM prints to evaluate overmolded touchpoints.

Machined polypropylene prototypes with metal blades validated ergonomic discoveries.

CAD exploration of proportion, ergonomics, and scale.

Adjustments, dimensions, and relationships were carefully documented to create and track testably distinct prototypes.

We printed and tested dozens of prototype handles to optimize the handle geometry at this scale.

Exploring surface treatments around major touchpoints uncovered specific geometry that reduces discomfort.

Assembly Details

Refinement and DFM

In collaboration with ELEVEN's engineering team and OXO, I refined the design of these scissors and locked down several features necessary for our usability requirements. I explored the assembly process and several methods of attachment to help us achieve these features and preserve design intent.

Precise, Spacious Handle Ensures Comfort Even at Wide Cutting Angles

Compact Size is Travel-Friendly yet Optimized for Everyday Use

Increased Range of Motion Accommodates Larger Veggies

Stainleess Steel Blades Snip Securely and Separate Easily for Cleaning

TPU Grips Minimize Fatigue

1/4" Marks Help Parents Prepare Bites to the BLW Recommended Dimensions

Travel Friendly

Dimensions

Carefully designed to fit in a purse, diaper bag, or go-bag, the OXO tot BLW Scissors are intended to go wherever parents go. The blades are also within the TSA recommended length of tk inches so they can accompany families on longer trips.

Comfotable Snipping

Features

We deliberately crafted and tested every handle surface to help minimize discomfort and reduce fatigue. These scissors open to a wide enough angle to chop most food items recommended in Baby-Led Weaning without causing undue pain for a wide array of hand shapes and sizes.

105° opening angle for larger pieces of food.

Soft, over-molded grips reduce fatigue.

Wide opening with precise contours accommodates hands of all sizes.

Quick-Measure Index

Features

We developed the blades of these scissors to include engraved markers at 1/4in intervals. These can be used while cutting food to quickly ascertain portion size. This helps parents make sure their baby is receiving a safe portion size for each stage of the Baby-Led Weaning process.