Eating delicious food is a fun and amazing experience for everyone, but cleaning the dishes later is a long and frustrating process. P&G’s Kitchen sink of the future aims to solve this problem by using smart technology.
Class Project - Arizona State University
5 weeks
Research
Physical Prototyping
Earl Radina
James Hill
Stephanie Mcnicol
The challenge was to help P&G envision the future of any of its services, processes, or products.
Re-imagining the kitchen sink of the future. A kitchen sink that enhances the overall experience of washing dishes. Cleaning dishes with this new sink is efficient and assuring.
Imagine the future - the year is 2047, humanity has made fantastic advancements in technology. Cars drive themselves, drones deliver your groceries, but toilets still need to be scrubbed and your fine china still needs the delicate touch of human hands. Not a company to let their customer’s concerns go unheard, P&G recruited a specialized team to envision the future of living.
Introducing the P&G Home of the Future. A house in which all your at-home needs are automatically met with Proctor and Gamble products, customized for your specific needs.
For this project, we decided to focus on an area of the house at at one of the best and worst times of the year. Neither can we ignore it nor we can do without it, we hate to use it, and it is one of the most frequently used areas of the kitchen - the Kitchen Sink . With new advancements and innovations in kitchen appliances and concepts, kitchen sink remains almost forgotten and unaltered in the process.
Our team utilized the first few days to gather the information about various P&G products and services. Based on the research conducted and data collected, our team decided to focus the study to the most frequently used area of the kitchen and the most hated task of dishwashing. To further understand users’ dishwashing experience, we focused on the interaction of the user with the kitchen sink. Next, we began conducting user interviews and user observations, gathering information about their experiences, preferences, frustrations and desires.
We created a persona for a typical user based on user research and ran him through the process of dishwashing. We used the persona during the ideation process, creating solutions for them and included them in our final solution.
Based on our findings, we mapped out the user’s journey to get an in-depth knowledge about their current dishwashing experience. We mapped out their journey to analyze the pain-points, their actions, feelings and their emotions in different phases. Also, this helped us in looking for product opportunities.
While Joe loves to have everybody on the Thanksgiving dinner, he hates doing the dishes, we ran Joe through the dishes and looked at the following painpoints:
The ideation process began by taking into consideration the research we conducted. We analyzed the data and focused on creating a space that can be incorporated easily and accurately within the kitchens. We carefully looked at the pain points Every thought was written down. This resulted in a number of ideas from all the team members. Ideas were then brainstormed to devise a more helpful solution that addressed the lower user satisfaction. We did a lot of iterations during the ideation phase.
The final phase of the project involved the creation of a physical prototype allowing visualization and physical manipulation of the proposed parts. We used foam and cardboards to create scale models of our sketches.
After the final prototype was developed, the team ran Joe through the dishes again. The new journey map shows the vast improvements made to the dishwashing experience.
Our team came to this solution after synthesis of our in-depth contextual research. Using insights gained from this research we developed a unique approach for creating a solution for sink of the future. Through iteration during our process our team focused on modularity for components, minimalist aesthetics, and practical implementation. Our team created a solitary system implemented within the holistic kitchen environment to promote positive user experience.
From getting our hands dirty with basic user research, developing user personas, to the early stages of prototyping, I got the opportunity to experience the design process as a team.
Pitching to a client 5 weeks worth of work in less than 3 minutes was an incredibly difficult challenge. Learning how to communicate all of our ideas clearly and concisely, while honoring the work we put into the project was a huge learning moment.
