CLEANMOD: A MODULAR CLEANING EXPERIENCE
Skills: Research, ethnographic research, design research, interviewing, surveying, observation, data collection and analysis, visual auditing, enterprise model generation
Cleaning products like brooms and mops are a fairly disorganised market segmenting the US. Although they’ve been a commodity since centuries now, the industry itself hasn’t witnessed a significant breakthrough. There is also a presence of high competition and ever-increasing alternatives within this industry that has resulted in confused buyers. I treated this confusion as an opportunity to create a product/service enterprise through design research that could create a value for itself. This resulted in CleanMod.
intent
The goal of this project was to create a distinguishable enterprise in a market that is overcrowded with products. The strategy for doing this included selecting a target audience, designing a product based on user insights and then creating a brand and enterprise model to achieve the desired consequence.
Process
Analysis
Analysis phase consisted of four parts: Secondary research, primary research, visual auditing of existing brands and creating personas for possible target customers.
Secondary research included history, market analysis, market forecast, major manufacturers and retailers and alternative options available in this industry in the US. I was looking for gaps in the existing industry and also where the industry was heading.
For primary research, I visited three stores in the city of Savannah, Georgia to get user insights: Target, Family Dollar and Kroger. I conducted observations, interviews and surveys as a part of my primary research to gather user insights. I ensured gathering data from a diverse demographic to find out the buying decisions of customers. This data was later synthesised using affinity clustering to form the design criteria of CleanMod.
synthesis
A working wall was created from all the data that I had gathered from the analysis phase. This consisted of visual audits and personas in addition to primary and secondary research. The purpose of working wall is to view all the data at once on a giant canvas, allowing information to organically form clusters based on themes, trends and similarities. This process is highly intuitive for the designer and helps in sense-making of the collected data. The synthesis phase resulted in forming the design criteria for CleanMod.
exploration
Design criteria for CleanMod consisted of the following:
Better buying experience
User safety
Usage and Performance
Serving ‘Traditional‘ customers
Awareness of activity
It was recognised that most customers possess a plethora of cleaning products but end up using only one as their primary cleaner. At this point it was also decided that the target customer segment was the older population in the United States. These were the people who were still using traditional cleaning products because of the overwhelming options available in the market. Based on this designed criteria, an artifactual model was created through the ABC-Q method with the differentiating factor being the unique buying experience.
CleanMod buying experience starts with exclusive aisles in stores. It then offers a step-by-step buying process:
STEP 1: Choose a stalk (single-handle/ double-handle)
STEP 2: Choose a cleaning element (broom/mop/sponge/microfibre)
STEP3: Choose an accessory (mop bucket/ dust pan/ support wheels)
This buying experience then extended with an online forum called ‘Connected Customers’ where customers could share their frustrations and help each other with ideas. This forum would serve as a user insight base for CleanMod to develop future modules.
CleanMod buying experience
realization
The final process was to create a robust enterprise model to realise the CleanMod brand that included a modular cleaning product and a ‘Connected Customers’ online forum. Marketing, Design and IT were recognised as key departments within the CleanMod enterprise that cross-collaborated on various fronts. Also, partnerships such as the Arthritis
