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P&G User experience project

Duration: 3 months, 2013 | Role: UX designer

We innovate a detergent experience for old people to reduce their tensions when using Tide

01.Summary

This is a team-based user experience project incorporating with P&G. Our team's challenge is to innovate a better detergent experience of tide with a constraint that one part of the detergent need to be recycled. Building on insights we gained from 10-in home visits and one prototyping workshop our team learned some valuable insights.

Laundry users need a better experience, through less dripping, making it easier to get it all out, reducing the weight that had to be carried every time, and underlying all these tensions was the feeling that they were being penalized for not being able to life larger bottles. And certain challenges were most acute for older users. Our design direction sought to address the challenges of the baby boomers, those that will only grow over time.

Our team brainstormed, prototyped and tested a variety of ideas through workshops and home-visits and presented them to P&G. P&G said it was the second best idea they had ever seen after the one their research team innovated for years. They also rewarded us an intellectual property award. Due to extended confidential agreement, some details of the project may not be disclosed.

02. Research: First In home visit

In order to discover the real tensions and needs, we conducted in-home visits and interviews with our customers. We observed their way to do a regular laundry with tide, asked them to think aloud to talk about the tensions they had with the product. And we also asked them to do a visual diary to explain what their ideal laundry experience would be to get the key "emotions" they are looking for.

03. Synthesis: 7 big themes

After our first in-home visits, we met as a team to tell the story of each user and share moments that stood out. In the end, we identified "Big 7" major themes from users' pain points.

04. Tensions on the journey: which context should we focus on

As the problem scope is so big, we need to focus on some particular context and target users to narrow down the problem area. Based on interviews and observations we created a tension map throughout the life-cycle of a laundry pack. Some of the greatest tension occurs at the beginning of the process, where a heavy full bottle makes dosing and handling most difficult. Tension continues through out but again peaks as users adopt a variety of workaround to get everything out and as mess builds up.

My team wants to focus on an area that has big tensions. So we ignored the experience from store to home but focused more on the start-using and finish-using of the detergent

05. Narrow down: target baby boomers

During our research, we also found out that some common challenges are even worse for baby boomers. Hence, we developed our concept with this group's needs specifically in mind to narrow down the problem scope. We believe if we could solve for their unique tensions we would be creating a product that was better for all users.

Baby boomers (44-64 years of age) are the largest demographic group other than Millennials. As a group they are beginning to approach retirement age, with decreasing strength and eyesight mentioned as biggest challenges in the laundry process. Secondary research about Baby Boomers describes them as not wanting to be made to feel old.


Meet our persona Debbie and here are the main three challenges she is facing:

06. Design Direction

In the visual diary of an ideal laundry experience. Users desiered an easy process, where they could get all the value from their product, saving time and feeling good about themselves throughout the process. For our target users, these goals can be prioritized based on their challenges. This allowed us to develop a hierachy of our goals, areas where we will focus on.

In summary, our goal is to:
  • 1. minimize the weight carried throughout the life of the products life.
  • 2. allow for easier dosing where users had control over the amount but provided with a clear guide
  • 3. Build in the ease of getting it all out
  • 4. Reduce or eliminate dripping

07. Brainstorm and prototype

Our brainstorm consists of two parts, first we brainstormed different solutions to different goals. Then we tried to combine several solutions together to make a whole product.

08. Testing

For the final round of in-home visits, we brought along prototypes to build on our insights and explore concepts. We also asked users to rate their current packs and a final pack made up of their favorite elements that were tested. We learned three main insights which reframed our design solutions. The satisifactory survey shows a improvements addressming the issues about dosing, handling and getting it all out.

09. Refinement: iterating concepts based on testing insights

The testing formed a solid foundation for our team to deliver the final concepts. We brainstormed again and critiqued on each concept's pros and cons.

Here are two examples of the penultimate concepts

10.Final concept

Our final designs are built on the feedback and greatest moments of joy that we observed from the testing of our concept prototypes. It also leverages familiar actions from existing products and workaround practices users already employ. It incorporates the following features:

  • 1. Flexible Reload
  • 2. Comfortable Handle
  • 3. Squeeze Pump
  • 4. Transparent Cup
  • 5. Transparent window

    • P&G gave us an intellectual property award.