Understanding female insights to improve a brand's product portfolio architecture, & NPD
During my time in the UK's leading product design and development agency, as a small, team of 3, I was asked to help a global consumer-goods company improve one of their brand's product pillars and portfolio range. Beyond physical product design, I was involved in design research planning & synthesis, as well as translating our findings into design directions, to then also design new product solutions.
Outcome
• A restructured branded product portfolio driven by consumer insights
• Brand portfolio growth
• Two new products, strengthening and extending the product range
What I did
• Design research: Observations, Interviews, Focus Group, User testing, User profiling. Ran user testing workshops over 4 hours with 24+ participants over 2 days
• Provided team report on differences between what users expected and what it was being offered in store and product range improvement suggestions
• Explored several product design directions through sketches, 3D models and cosmetic prototypes
Having the UK’s leading hair removal brand in their portfolio, Reckitt Benckiser already offered products in over 50 countries. From a hair removal perspective, Veet was a world leader in 2011. However, keeping in live with their business strategy for business growth, they required user testing to gather feedback for on shelf, in-store navigation, product architecture restructure, general product functionality and design improvements.
The aim of this testing would help to:
• Understand customer in-store expectations and overall reactions to the brand's existing product portfolio
• Gain specific feedback on each products physical design and packaging
• Action specific feedback on the visual and industrial design (initial design concepts applied to new portfolio range)
We ran lab based user testing with 24+ participants over 2 days. Sessions were run using a replicate in-store shopping layout over 4 hours, where users were asked to explore a full range of 'shelf picking' scenarios, from simple browsing to selecting a sensitive cream for your bikini, to choosing the best product for yourself. Following this, users were asked to complete a survey to produce some quantitative data regarding their opinions.
For recruitment, we were tasked with finding a wide range of users who could give a good cross-section of the Veet customer base. In collaboration with a user testing recruitment agency, we produced profiles that covered the majority of their users to ensure the product range would be developed to suit a variety of users needs.
During sessions, we recorded both the actions of all users together with their reactions, using video set up in the lab room, and photos taken by testing assistants. These assets assisted the design phases by showing insights into users behaviours, which could then be used to modify each product design in its iterative design process.
User Workshop
Our results were presented to Reckitt Benckiser with a thorough report that identified high to low priority issues, with photos & video clips to support our observations. We identified areas of the user's mental modes and confusion in finding it difficult to select the right product for the intended task/area, concerns around maintenance and awareness of skin sensitivity.
One such recommendation was to break down the product portfolio into clear product categories/pillars based on body areas users stated, for them to easily narrow down their search in store. Through the use of one-on-one interviews we found differences between how users expected a large product range to be organized, and clarified in what each product should be able to do/offer, particularly surrounding product marketing, cognitive and physical capabilities, such as skin sensitivity vs. timing control.
