"How might we redesign and innovate a college student’s process of doing laundry?"
Background
In the course Experience Design 1, we were tasked with innovating on an experience related to washing. I decided to work on the college laundry experience, as I have seen many people frustrated over the current state of things, especially long wait times, mishandling of laundry, and uncleanliness. This project was a thorough end to end process, from interviewing users and creating problem statements, to prototyping and testing solutions
Team
For this project, I worked with two other students: Maya Manela and Rashi Agrawal.
Challenges
It is a difficult task to create something entirely from scratch that does not already exist. Even more difficult is creating something that provides value and doesn't just promote more consumerism, My goal was to create something that felt tangible, useful, helpful, and realistic.
What We Accomplished
In just 2 months time, we were able to take just the prompt of 'washing,' and find a niche market, conduct interviews, discover the problem, ideate solutions, refine our idea, create looks-like and works-like prototypes, and finally present our product to a board of 4 design experts who were all very pleased with the solution.
01 Research
User Research: Interviews
We interviewed 5 college students for 30 minutes each to understand their needs and goals better. We wrote an interview script so that we would cover all necessary questions, but strayed from the protocol as needed to follow the natural flow of the conversation and gain better insights. To help the interviewees feel more comfortable and answer freely, we used help from objects that we created, including card sorts and conversation starter images.
Learning Goals
What is students' mindset about laundry?
What is their process for doing laundry, how does it fit into their routines?
What are the burdens of doing laundry?
Interview Protocol
Tell me about yourself
Growing up, did you do any chores around the house?
Do you have favorite chores? Or chores you preferred/found easier?
Did you feel forced to do those chores or did you willingly do them?
Did doing these chores make you feel a certain way?
Did your parents influence how you approach chores now?
Describe where you live now.
Would you describe yourself as organized? Is your entire family organized?
Do your cleaning/washing habits differ significantly from your family? How do you deal with this?
Where and when do you do your laundry? Why?
How does doing laundry make you feel?
How often do you think about doing the laundry? How do you remember?
How much money do you spend on laundry monthly? Are you okay with this amount?
Was laundry a factor when you were deciding where to rent/buy?
What products do you use - types of detergent, softener etc? Have you experienced any issues with these products?
Card Sorts
The card sorts helped us learn where students' priorities were. I designed 15 cards to represent different aspects about laundry, such as scent, cleanliness, transportation, time, supplies, costs, etc. Users then sorted these cards in terms of their satisfaction in these categories. This helped identify common problem areas, and cross check them to find patterns in issues.
Conversation Starter Images
Another activity was the conversation starter images. I printed out 10 of these laundry related images to evoke reactions and start conversations on different topics, such as separating clothes by color, using liquid vs pod detergent, etc.
02 Define
Processing User Statements
Next, we extracted statements from interview notes and sorted them to find patterns. The statements are grouped into green for enjoyment, red for pain points, and yellow for quirks. We also had a column for headlines, to summarize how a user felt about the process in general.
Pain Points
After organizing the sticky notes, we found that there were 5 common pain points that we could solve for.
Transporting laundry from dorms to the laundry room can be difficult.
Supplies used come from a force of habit, such as brand and types of product used.
Availability of machines is difficult to anticipate
Laundry machines are often dirty or out of order.
Campus laundry can be expensive
How Might We…
Help students anticipate availability of washers and dryers to save time?
Help the university maintain cleanliness in the laundry room by providing resources for students?
Make laundry as cheap as possible to provide freedom with scheduling?
Developing Design Criteria
We decided that an ideal design should follow the following criteria:
Not invading of privacy of students
Simple, easy to use, few steps involved
Accessible to all students
Adaptable to all laundry rooms
Reliable
03 Design
Documenting Current Systems
To better understand the user perspective, we went to a Northeastern University laundry room and documented what the current systems in place are. This meant noting down all the steps one must take to complete a load of laundry, from swiping your Husky card, to paying, to choosing a machine, etc.
Envisioning Experiences
After doing research, we experimented with different ways that we could solve some of the main points. We ended up on the idea of a 'Laundry Buddy,' drawing inspiration from restaurant buzzers, Apple Airtags, and safety buttons.
Our product would serves three main roles:
A key — Lock your machine while in use so other students don't move your clothing.
A timer — Countdown the exact time remaining for each cycle without having to leave your dorm.
A buzzer — Goes off when the cycle is complete. Stay accountable and get rewarded with future laundry credit.
User Journey Map Storyboarding
Then, I drew up this journey map to help demonstrate how our product would ideally work. The cartoon boy shows us encountering the system for the first time. In this graphic we can see how it allows him to relax while doing laundry, by taking off some of the mental load of worrying about clothes being taken, forgetting to go back in time, and financial burdens as well.
04 Testing
The First Prototype
After sketching out our idea on paper, we quickly moved to drafting a physical 'feels-like' model. This was crafted out of cardboard and yarn, to represent the shape, size, and general look of the product. We knew we wanted a space for the countdown timer, a button for snoozing, a handle, a speaker, and laundry machine number.
Designing with CAD
Then, we began drafting our idea in Solidworks, a 3D modeling software. Using CAD helped us move things along faster. We could visualize our ideas in minutes and even show them to others for feedback.
Making Modifications
After much advice and feedback from peers, we came to our final design. The edges were softened for a nicer feel and sleeker look. The timer slot was much larger as that was the object's biggest purpose and needed to be emphasized and clearly visible. The handle for the strap at the top was much smaller and thinner, allowing more hooks and lanyards to fit through it.
Running Into 3D Printing Issues
When we were printing, we ran into many issues. The machines were always busy with other projects, so there were long wait times. Sometimes our prints would fail completely, sometimes the support material was too thick to come out, and sometimes it just didn't look the way we wanted it to. Regardless, we knew that with every failed iteration, we were one step closer to our final product.
Setting the Stage
In the meantime, we also had to make props to demonstrate how our product would work in such a setting.
This meant creating a place for the Laundry Buddy to live and charge in when not in use. We came up with the idea of a mounted board that would hold the same amount of buzzers as there are dryers. When the Buddys are gone while in use, the empty spot will have a matching timer so you can see how much time is left in the cycle of that washer or dryer.
We also created a mock washer dryer to show how the product would interact with its' environment, and to sell our idea during the Shark Tank style pitch to our class.
05 Final Design
The Final Design
Our design was finally complete, with new added features on the back!
The magnet at the top helps the buzzer latch onto the board. In a working prototype, this would lock in more securely, similar to how public bikes lock.
The back shows a flashlight, which is an added accessibility tool. For those who are hard of hearing, alarm sounds are not efficient for communication. Therefore, this light will also flash when the laundry is done.
Reflections
This project was a huge success. Our panel of design judges were pleased with the novel idea, as well as the execution and many steps taken to get to the final product. I was so happy to see how far we had come from our initial brainstorming and interviewing, and how much I had learned.
I really loved working on this project and how it covered the whole process of experience design, from defining a problem and doing user research, to ideating solutions and user testing. By learning the foundations and practicing the process, I know I can apply these skills to any sort of problem: from designing physical objects and spaces, to designing systems and digital products.