SwiFFer Product Design
How might we design a device to help older consumers maintain their independence by continuing to clean their homes as well as keeping up their physical fitness?
Skills Used
Confidentiality Disclaimer
As part of my degree, I applied the human-centered design process to a corporate sponsored (Procter & Gamble) product design project. Due to a confidentiality agreement with P&G, I cannot disclose specific details about the project and the proposed solution.
User Research
Having received our project prompt from P&G, we started by interviewing 8 different consumers over an online platform called DScout. COVID-19 presented my team with interesting challenges in conducing our user research, but this provided me with the opportunity to learn about a variety of online software. During these interviews we asked consumers to highlight current tensions in their cleaning process. We started very broad and talked about cleaning all areas of the house, the products they used, and what influenced their cleaning schedule.
In total, we conducted 3 rounds of user interviews throughout the entirety of the process in order to gain feedback as we moved forward in developing our user journeys, defining insights, and developing prototypes. I had the opportunity to personally conduct 6 of the interviews in which I gained user research skills and now feel confident that I can successfully achieve insights from consumers.
Concepts and Ideation
Once we had developed a rapport with our users and began to understand their behaviors, tensions and emotions surrounding cleaning and exercise, we developed journey maps and various frameworks to capture the insights and areas with design energy.
In synthesizing our learnings, I gained an understanding of identifying patterns across users. Creating visuals allowed my team to analyze the opportunity areas and, thus, allowed us to develop our user persona to embody the user journey and key tensions.
From insight to physical design
Our initial round of research uncovered crucial insights and tensions that needed to be addressed, but there were still several unanswered questions. We developed 7 different low fidelity prototypes to help tease out the design requirements our users were looking for.
With user interviews being conducted online, we had to get creative in how we presented our prototypes. We were able to create short videos of ourselves using the created prototypes filmed in a first person manner in order to invoke a sense of self-usage in our users.
We incorporated several prototyping activity and stimuli that helped guide us in understanding our consumers likings. I personally developed 2 of our 7 prototypes and gained valuable knowledge in the importance of low-fidelity prototyping.
Final Solution and deliverables
After having conducted three phases of consumer interviews, our team ultimately identified 6 key emotional and functional design requirements to be incorporated into our final prototype. Final deliverables included wireframing of our app solution, development of an executive summary, creation of a consumer pitch video, physical prototype development, and in - context renders.
I focused heavily on the development of our app-based solution and what the consumer would want out of that. I took part in creating the renderings of our physical solution and 3D printing pieces in order to bring the product to life. Lastly, I took charge of laying out our design requirements for our final presentation and developing our user persona and journey. It was exciting to see how our chosen consumer interlaced with our design requirements and solutions in order to bring a product to the consumer that they really wanted.
Blurred for Confidentiality
Potential Impact and Future Goals
Our final product received positive feedback from our P&G sponsors. They felt we had done extensive research on the users and really found ways to design for their needs and overcome the tensions at present. For future considerations, our solution would likely need more user research into a few components we had not been able to touch on, as well as validation testing and continued prototyping.
Thank you to my team members, Jeremy Fu, Caroline Scheibel, and Justin Reimonenq, my professors , Jim Wicks and Helen von den Steinen, and our P&G champions and sponsors.