Save the best for last…

Through the Insight/Experience Audit & Prototype group project, I learned that assumptions made at the beginning of a research can be completely wrong. Therefore, it’s incredibly important to keep an open mind throughout the research process, especially when collecting data, to ensure that preconceived notions will not bias the final interpretation of the data and the resulting insight. For example, before I began working on this project with my team, we sat down to brainstorm what our target segment, do-it-all moms, would want in a home office. We quickly all agreed that the home office was a section where moms could stay separate from the rest of her house, where the walls are decorated, room is spacious and organized, and our do-it-all mom would spend most of her working time within this office. As we began interviewing the respondents for our research, it was clear that this segment moved around the house throughout the day and worked in several different kinds of areas within the house. Some even left the house for periods of time and worked in coffee shops for a change of scenery. It was clear that our moms are mobile. It was this exact insight that drove our next round of investigation and interviews, which resulted in our mobile desk prototype. This group project has taught me that although assumptions are a good way to start research, researchers should not be reluctant to accept change as they collect data because it just might drive the ultimate prototype.

Another concept I learned is that although segmentation is an important tool for creating products and marketing programs, it is important to develop a persona that goes beyond demographics to understand the consumer’s life, value, habits, interests, etc. In doing so, researchers can segment their target creatively rather than relying on tangible characteristics such as sex, age, gender, education level, etc. By empathizing with consumers and developing a deeper understanding, marketers can design products that truly cater to their wants and needs and create value for consumers. For instance, our do-it-all mom is more than just a woman with kids who work at home and play tennis on the weekends. For her, there is an inner struggle between taking care of the house and working. Both tasks are simultaneously on her mind and not mutually exclusive. This important insight is a key part of her persona that we uncovered as we tried to empathize with her complex life and asked questions that gave us a deeper understanding into her daily routines. If we were looking for physical traits or two-dimensional behaviors, we would have missed this insight, which led to the development of our multi-layer desk surface that allowed our moms to be able to look at their to-do list for the house at the same time as their work material. From our feedback, we realized that our moms appreciated this aspect to our product.

In the beginning of the project, I was extremely excited at the prospect of creating a prototype. I was also nervous about actually interviewing the respondents. During the project, at times I was frustrated and stressed. For example, when respondents didn’t complete their assignments on time or when the group found it hard to meet. But as the project came to an end, I felt a sense of accomplishment and was proud of our prototype that we so painstakingly built together over several afternoons. Our group was unique in that we had two Spanish students. The language barrier made it hard to understand each other most of the time. Wordreference.com became our friend quickly. However, the language barrier also created many laughter throughout the project and ultimately, due to our teammates’ diverse background, we were able to brainstorm more creatively as they came up with suggestions that we would’ve never thought of. We checked in with our professor regularly to make sure that we were moving along towards the right direction in our project. This helped us refine our presentation and prototype and was overall a positive experience. I appreciated the process of the project which allowed us to create a prototype, gather feedback, and then refine our prototype. The feedback was crucial to some of the changes we made to our final prototype. Working with my group has definitely contributed to my learning experience. As mentioned before, diversity makes brainstorming a lot more interesting and I believe that you can always learn a lot from people of different backgrounds, whether it’s about the project or life in general. My teammates were passionate about life and vivacious throughout the project. This made the material a lot more enjoyable as well. We celebrated the end of our project by going to Austin Karaoke and singing the night away!