Laundry Dispenser
is an innovative product that brings a simplified experience with improved outcomes
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No mess, no measure
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Best results, every time
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Sustainability
*To protect this unreleased product, strategy and solution details will be hidden.
The picture below is the traditional laundry detergent experience that we are all familiar with.
Project Background
This is an Advance Development & Innovation project consisting of multiple phases from marketing&consumer research to problem space definition, to concept initiation, to IP(intellectual property) landscape, and finally to design and validation. Now we are at the last step of this ADI project! Yayyy! Because we have all the helpful information from the previous phases, we can be confident and focus on designing the best product and the ideal experience at this point.
The sprint team includes Marketing, Hardware engineer, Software engineer, Industrial designer, CFM(Color, Finish, Material), Graphics designer, Consumer Insight, and UX designer(Hi! I am here).
June 2020 - Dec 2020
We learned from the previous research that consumers expected simplified laundry detergent experiences with improved outcomes, and they were willing to pay a premium for the added convenience. That’s pretty straightforward!
And here we have the detergent cartridge as the solution after the market has tried pods and bulk dispensing. The cartridge is a fully recyclable hand-size box filled with 8X concentrated detergent. Ideally, consumers insert the cartridge into the washer cartridge slot, and the system will take care of everything. The cartridge experience reduces the total steps from shopping to daily use, and meets the goal of “no mess, no measure”.
To achieve the most desirable cartridge experience, we need to look closely at each step and optimize every interaction.
Initial ideation and validation
"First of all, let’s think through the whole story of consumers shopping around to finally falling in love with the cartridge!"
While we were brainstorming, we made assumptions about consumers’ behavior and preferences. Those are all key points that we need to validate through the following research.
There are different washer models, some of them only have LED and buttons/knobs on the HMI, some have an extra ATM-style display, some have an extra touch screen. Besides, there are connected and non-connected models. We will consider all these while picturing the real-use scenarios.
LED Example
ATM Example
LCD touch Example
Storyboard
Pre-delivery
Delivery & Onboarding
Daily Use
Support & Maintain
Research
This was unmoderated online research with structured questions. In total, 34 whirlpool product consumers participated in this research. This research identified consumers’ preferred cartridge features, interaction behaviors, cartridge packaging design, and marketing advertisement language.
The research results helped me understand consumer desires and design preferences.
Gender
Female 56%
Male 44%
Segment
Experiential Caretakers 38%
Influential Connoisseurs 26%
Discerning Aspirers 12%
Overscheduled Outsourcers 12%
Careful Protectors 9%
Timeless Traditionalists 3%
Duration
~45 min
Washer type
Front-load 50%
Top-load 50%
Dive deep and Validation
"Let's design the digital user experience across products and platforms!"
After we had a clear understanding of the desired cartridge functions, we needed to define the user behaviors and user flows, and to validate the feasibility of the design. Because the cartridge feature was unbranded yet, I needed to think at a high level. However, the cartridge feature would be implemented on some existing products eventually, so I needed to keep this in mind at the same time.
I connected with the product UX, who had relevant knowledge, to understand Laundry HMI capability and constraints. And I decided to focus on the LED and ATM-Style HMI because these two types of HMIs had more limitations in terms of design and implementation.
With rounds of stakeholder reviews and iterations, I finalized the behavior spec and user flows across HMIs, prototype animation, and App work. Engineers built physical prototypes based on the spec and the design was tested in person.
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LED Prototype
ATM Prototype
Behavior Spec + App
LED Flow
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ATM Flow
LCD Touch Flow
After minor revisions, the UX design was finally approved and transitioning to the next phase!
During the transition, product UX will take my deliverables and evaluate them based on a real product HMI board that’s picked to add this new cartridge feature. At the same time, the dishwasher team would like to refer to our design for the dish cartridge.
This cartridge ADI project gained recognition, and I was nominated to lead UX work for another ADI project!
