GE Appliances is the USA leader for its home products, kitchen appliances, parts and accessories, and support.
Product Designer:
Market, Technology & Customer Research & Analysis,
Product Concept, Value Proposition,
Interactive Prototype, User Testing,
Business Model Canvas.
Jan 2020 - Mar 2020
Team Project (3 Product Designers with shared roles))
Overview of the problem
Laundry rooms are the least loved places at University Housings. Both the students and property managers (PMs) are tired of the constant wear and tear of old washers and dryers. While students are unable to make an easy cashless payment, PMs are not able to replace old machines due to the expense of replacement.
What is Laundry-as-a-Service?
Laundry-as-a-Service (LaaS), an IoT x service-based ecosystem that aims to help the Students and Property Managers of the University Housings in the USA. We worked in conjunction with GE Appliances (GEA) to create a better laundry experience for Students and Property Managers while also creating a service-focused business strategy for GEA.
"Laundry-as-a-Service" (Laas), contains 3 parts: Smart Machines, Integrated App for Students' and Business Strategy for the company.
Features of GEA Smart Washers & Dryers
We proposed to create rigid and smart appliances that support Predictive Maintenance. Some of the features of the machines are listed below:
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In-built AI Technology detects anomalies
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In-built Sensors monitors & reports the machines' condition
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Built-in Wifi Communication Card helps to communicate information to the maintenance dashboard (Explained in detail in the second part of the solution)
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Durable, Commercial grade machines; built for large usage
Features of GEA Spin App
We built a laundry app, called GEA Spin App, that is connected to the GEA Smart Machines. Now, let's explore each feature. 🙂
Students can view the available machines & schedule a pair by clicking the “Book now” button. They can also modify settings based on the clothing material & make a cashless payment easily.
Students can order the detergent products directly from this app. They receive an added benefit of 25% discount on each purchase.
(Explained in detail in the second part of the solution)
Students can check the status of the wash or dry cycle anytime, from anywhere without having to wait. The app also notifies them on completion of the cycle.
Business Strategy for the client (GEA)
To build a long-term revenue model for GE Appliances, we proposed a strong Business Strategy. This strategy not only benefits the company but also offers benefits to its consumers (students and property managers).
Partnership with Procter & Gamble
GE Appliances will partner with Procter & Gamble (P&G). P&G is the worlds largest consumer goods company famous for brands like Tide, Ariel, Downy, etc. Now, let me walk you through the benefits of this partnership:
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Students who order P&G products from the GEA Spin App will receive 20% discount on every purchase
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GEA will receive 10% profit share from each purchase of P&G products
Free Installation & Maintenance Service, and Recurring Revenue Model
As a part of the service, the appliances will be installed at Universities for free by GEA. GEA will maintain and operate the laundry rooms and provide 24/7 assistance, ensuring appliances’ smooth functioning. In the long-term view, GEA will benefit through the usage charge from students.
To keep track of machine usage, we created an Integrated Maintenance Dashboard for GEA Maintenance Team, that is connected to the Smart Washers & Dryers. Let’s see its primary features.
GEAs' Maintenance team can view details about the issues that has occurred to take actions before the machine breaks down.
GEAs' Maintenance team can track the number of usage for each washer and dryer used by the students at the Dormitory Laundry Room.
This project started with a prompt given by GE Appliances to design an IoT-based ecosystem & a business strategy around a "smart home" for University Housing Multi-family Dwelling Unit (MDU).
The Design Process
Understanding the University Housing Market
We started our research by conducting an environmental analysis of University Housing in the USA to understand the market trends and forces that drive the housing segment. Some interesting findings are here:
From our findings, we did a SWOT Analysis of GEA.
Researching Smart Home Technologies & IOT Trends
We gathered information about the technologies used on University Housings, Adjacent Industries (Hotels, Resorts, Senior Living Communities), and Vertical Industries. We further researched current IoT Trends and smart systems created by GEAs’ competitors to gain inspiration and uncover GEA opportunities.
Semi-structured User Interviews
Our MDU consisted of two users - Property Managers and Students.After completing our market and tech research, we started contacting the property managers and students of different University housings. 6 universities were interested in participating in our study.
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I conducted approximately 40 minutes semi-structured interviews each, with 4 Property Managers and 3 Dorm students. Together, our team conducted interviews with 7 Property Managers and 8 students.
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Property Managers included Facilities Asset Coordinator, Associate Director of Housing Facilities and Building Operations, Assistant Director of Housing Facilities Operations, Resident Assistant, Community Director, Resident Advisor, and Community Coordinator. Students included graduate and undergraduate students.
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From our interviews, we were able to better understand the problems with the current household appliances they used. While there few other problems related to refrigerator, and dishwasher, most of our problems were related to laundry devices.
Affinity Mapping, Empathy Mapping & User Personas
We used Affinity Mapping and Empathy Mapping to synthesize the data that we collected from these interviews. We crafted 2 User Personas to summarize our research.
Now let's look at the user personas that we crafted from the affinity diagram and empathy mapping. Personas helped us summarize our goals and identify pain-points.
Ideating 3 different concepts for 3 different issues
For the top 3 problems that we identified from the user research, we created 3 different solutions. To create each solution, we did hours and hours of white-boarding sessions, discussion among the team, and also discussing with the Professor.
Now let's look at each problem, the concept solution and the value proposition.
Down-selection of idea
Based on the ten questions covering the holistic view of a great business model, we rated each idea. Please view the questions and ratings here. We pitched all 3 ideas, value propositions, and feasibility of each solution to the client. Based on the discussion, we moved ahead with concept 2- Laundry-as-a-Service (LAAS) because of the following reasons:
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Poor laundry system was the problem identified from most users from multiple universities.
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GE Appliances already had a successful line in the laundry domain.
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This approach could be implemented in other MDU segments like extended living, senior living communities, etc.
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Lastly, idea 2 received the highest score based on the ten questions.
Using CSAT to measure Customer Satisfaction
We used Amazon's secret weapon: Working backwards.
Before jumping directly to the final ideas’ exploration, we created a marketing sheet and press release representing our down-selected idea. We pitched them to potential customers to get their feedback. We also sent out the customer satisfaction survey (Google Survey) to 30 students and 4 resident advisors to get quantified data about their satisfaction with the product and service idea. Out of them, only 12 students and 2 resident advisors responded to our survey.
CSAT Score = 90%
90% of the customers were satisfied with our product and service idea.
Revisiting the core problem: Poor Laundry System
Longer wait times
Approximately 50 students use one pair of washers and dryers a day. We found that every time students visit the laundry room, they have to wait for a specific time. Sometimes, it exceeds an hour. Some students walk about 10-30 minutes just to reach the laundry room.
Unreliable machines with lots of wear and tear
When a washing machine breaks down, the students cannot use any other machine since the entire laundry room gets filled with water. On the other hand, property managers have a hard time fixing the same issue due to the limited number of technicians.
Expensive to replace old machines
Approximately 50 students use one pair of washers and dryers a day. We found that every time students visit the laundry room, they have to wait for a specific time. Sometimes, it exceeds an hour. Some students walk about 10-30 minutes just to reach the laundry room.
Cannot check machines' availability beforehand; coins for payment
Students have to waste a lot of time waiting for an available washer/dryer pair. Also, they often forget to carry quarters with them to use the machines.
Brainstorming, Wireframing & User Testing
Brainstorming & White-boarding
Our team did multiple sessions for brainstorming and meetings with the Professor to discuss and explore new proposed solutions, features, business strategies, user challenges, and changes that were necessary to improve the product user experience. We created quick sketches of the high-level architecture of the entire solution before starting the wireframes. Here is the final high-level architecture that we created.
Sitemap & Wireframing
As we got confident with the final high-level architecture, we identified crucial features for the apps, built sitemap. Based on this, I created wireframes to conduct a quick user testing to better understand the usability issues and make improvements that improved the user experience.
User Testing & Issues identified
I requested six novice users (friends and other graduate students) to use the app and conduct and think-aloud session to see where they were mostly confused.
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Most of them had trouble purchasing the detergent quickly. They took some time to figure out the location of the store page. Initially, we built a hamburger menu to hide the features and make the page clean. However, we realized that this clean page had a negative impact on the overall user experience, increasing the cognitive load for the users. So, for the final prototype, we decided to use a bottom navigation for easy access.
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Next, we found issues with login where most of the participants wanted to login through campus credentials since that was easier and more convenient for them.
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Some students mentioned about ways to cancel the booking which was not available in our wireframes. We also received feedback from our professor regarding adding an advertisement about GEA and P&G partnership so that students are aware about the offers they would receive on purchasing through this app.
Unifying the machines, integrated apps, and marketing strategy
Proposing features for Smart Machines
Firstly, we proposed features that helped build a smart washer and dryer. This way, it was easier for us to move ahead with the apps integrated to the appliances. With the help of sensors, built-in predictive analysis technology, and built-in wifi, the appliances could be very useful for the end users.
Visual design inspirations for integrated apps
Next, for the integrated mobile and dashboard apps, I used the current brand color of GEA to build the apps to maintain consistency. For the overall look and feel of the app's design, I used dribbble and pinterest to find visual designs that inspired me. I created an inspirational board for my reference.
Incorporating features and designing the high-fidelity interfaces
Using the low-fidelity design and feedbacks received, I created the high-fidelity interactive mockups of the Student's app and high-fidelity screens for the Maintenance app. Using proper contrast and typography in the design elements helped to improve the findability, usability, and user experience.
Given below are the high-fidelity screens for the interactive mobile app for students:
Recurring Revenue Model for GEA
Summarized Business Model Canvas
Here is the final presentation we pitched to the client:
Constraints
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Time was the most significant constraint for this project. We had only 3 months to conduct research, analyze, and come up with the final solution. If we had more time, we would have reached out to more users from different parts of the country, belonging to different University Housings.
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As a part of our course requirement, we had to identify the top three problems that our target users face and solution ideas for each of them. If we didn’t have to provide three different ideas for three different problems, we would have got more time to explore ideas for the main problem.
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Due to COVID-19, we could not reach out to potential clients to provide the printed Press Release and Marketing Sheet.
Learnings
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We often focus on creating visually aesthetic designs and end up overlooking the holistic picture. This project helped me understand the business aspect of problem-solving. I learned how to create designs that provide long-term benefits to the company and fulfill the requirements of users. I got the opportunity to explore the broader meaning of product designing by creating not just an app but also a revenue-focused business strategy for the company.
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Further, I also realized that it's the end-users experience that matters! No matter how fancy or creative your ideas are, it becomes pointless if your users cannot understand them.
