P&G
Human Centered Product Innovation
My team and I were challenged by P&G to dream up and develop new benefits to one of their consumer product brands. Our research and deliverables are currently covered by and NDA and cannot be disclosed. These are the steps we took to arrive at our solution.
Step 1: Need Finding
First my team needed to understand how the users were currently using this product, what their high-level goals were, and what barriers kept them from attaining their goals. Through interviewing and observing the users in the context of which they use this product, we were able to gather loads of information about how our users behave in their current situation.
Step 2: Synthesis
With all this information on hand, we quickly needed to make sense out of it all. We got together and shared notes about each of the people we talked to. By creating a journey map of our user's entire experience with our product, we were able to organize the data in a way that opened new insights into how our users think, and what tensions they feel at each point in the journey. We found many common themes among our users but we ended up exploring one particular insight a bit further as we saw it had the most design energy, and if addressed, would have the biggest impact. This theme was that many users found that using this product "takes too much time to use".
Step 3: Framing
We broke down what "takes too much time to use" could means and we discovered a few possibilities.
We used these discoveries to help us frame the problems in new ways. We then asked ourselves "How Might We" address these problems in from a variety of different angles
- The act of using the product truly takes too much time
- The value of the product is not enough to justify spending the time using it
- If the product use context were changed, the perceived time of use could be reduced
We used these discoveries to help us frame the problems in new ways. We then asked ourselves "How Might We" address these problems in from a variety of different angles
Step 4: Ideation and Prototyping
With our problems framed, we began ideating solutions and dreamed up tons of wild approaches to reduce the perceived amount of time it takes to use this product. We gathered all the ideas we had. We were able to combine aspects of some together and compile our vast number of ideas into a small number of solution ideas that we mocked up in low fidelity prototypes.
Step 5: Testing
We mocked up the standard context of use and invited our users to use our prototypes as if they were in their own homes. We observed how they interacted with the objects we created, and took note of any implicit indications of delight or displeasure. After some synthesis, we realized that many of the prototypes that our users responded favorably to included a "travel friendly" aspect. This feedback guided our project in a direction we did not expect: replacing the standard context for which this product is normally used from in home use to taking it on the go.
Step 6: Repeat
From here, we started again from step 2 and iterated in the process. We synthesized this new information into a list more focused problems, ideated more specific solutions, and built higher fidelity prototypes that could solve this narrower problem scope. We once again invited our users to test our now higher fidelity prototypes to provide more focused feedback. With this feedback, we were able to once again hone in our thoughts and return to step 2 to improve on our ideas even further.
Step 7: Communicate
By the end of the project, our team had imagined our product in a new way. The innovative solution we came up with has not been offered to consumers in market in any way so far. In order to defend our stance, we compiled a journey map common in all of our user's testimonies. We used simple terms to clearly show our clients the tensions that arise in the current paradigm of the product experience, and how our vision of the product meets both the practical and emotional needs of our users in new ways. We engineered a fully functioning final prototype, demonstrated its use, and provided a video to show the many new scenarios in which the new product could be used.
The excitement from P&G's representatives was apparent in the room. The feedback we received was immensely flattering and positive. P&G representatives were inspired to become active and escalate our ideas in the pipeline of their brand's portfolio. Our team was granted an intellectual property award.
The excitement from P&G's representatives was apparent in the room. The feedback we received was immensely flattering and positive. P&G representatives were inspired to become active and escalate our ideas in the pipeline of their brand's portfolio. Our team was granted an intellectual property award.
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