Procter & Gamble + Northwestern
This project is currently under NDA therefore images are blurred and .
Procter & Gamble tasked us with creating a delightful packaging and delivery system for an on-body bug repellant.
Course: Human-Centered Product Design
Client: Zevo / Procter & Gamble
Contributions: Interviews, research, prototyping and testing
Research
We started the research process with competitive product research and consumer in-home interviews. For the in-home interviews, the team traveled to several consumer’s homes to gain further insight into how they used their bug-repellant products and specifically we were looking for ways in which consumers overcame any challenges they came across. Additionally, doing these interviews within the home allowed us to gain further insight into the environment that our consumers were using their products in. For example, we were able to learn more about:
Where do consumers store their bug repellants and what does that say about how they view that product? How can we design for use in these environments?
Do consumers use different types of products for different areas of the home? If so, why do consumers see these products as ‘better’ suited for this particular environment?
These interviews gave us more insights into where consumers felt their current products fell short. The team also looked further into the products we saw consumers using and did a competitive product analysis. All of this information was then used to help put together a plan for an additional round of interviews.
Prototyping and Testing
Based on the insights found in our research phase, we created several prototypes and invited our consumers back to test them out. In this round of testing, we were looking to not only test our prototypes but co-create alongside the participants and finalize our design requirements.
Presentation board with insights, design requirements and next steps
Product Pitch
After 10 weeks, the team presented our final product to our clients as well as a summary of all the information that we learned in our research. In addition to a presentation, our team came up with a product pitch video to demonstrate the use case and features of the product. The final presentation was conducted at P&G’s headquarters.
What I learned:
Understanding how to design the product to not only meet the functional requirements of a product but the emotional requirements as well
Dig deeper into people’s everyday behaviors - there are things we do mindlessly but asking “why?” will uncover very interesting insights
Interviews don’t always go the way you planned! Having to pivot on the spot is sometimes required but not necessarily a bad thing
Don’t overdo it - it's incredibly tempting to want to combine everything people asked for into one product. Having clear design requirements helps make the final decisions easier.
Project Length: September - December 2022
Process
Team Members: Ada Michaels-Shapiro, Mikayla Mai, David Schatz-Mizrahi, Sounak (Pablo) Gupta
The team mapping out the consumer journey
Synthesizing research after first round of in-home visits
Team sketching out final product pitch
Team celebrations after our final presentation in Cincinnati!
Acknowledgments:
I’d like to thank my teammates (listed at the top) for all their contributions and for the late night Figma jams.
A huge thank you to our instructors Jim Wick and Helen Vondensteinen for arranging the entire class and for the guidance throughout the quarter.
Another thank you to our P&G sponsors for flying to Chicago to meet us and pushing us in the right direction.