Whirlpool and Maytag are prominent names in the home appliance industry as well as the commercial laundry industry. Many of their commercial appliances are still coin operated and would benefit from implementation of contemporary smart payment methods.
- Blue Sky Ideation
- User Storytelling
- Wire-framing
- Interface Design
- Doug Hughmanick
- Brandon Boswell
Context
My team at ANML assisted Whirlpool with the development of unique design concepts that can be utilized within the market of commercial laundry. We considered how a digital experience could possibly play a role in making trips to the laundromat more efficient.
Problem
One major issue for people who regularly attend their local laundromat is that most of the washer and dryer appliances are still primarily coin operated.
This problem also persists at additional locations such as apartment complexes, university housing, and hotels.
As an industry leader within the market of home appliances, Whirlpool’s commercial laundry appliances remain behind innovative competitors who provide unique digital payment solutions for consumers.
Research began with a quick field trip to my local laundromat. Which oddly enough, is a place that I’ve never stepped inside before. During my visit, I wanted to gain a better perspective of the environment, different types of machines, and surface level pain points of operating the HMI.
Pain points categorized within each main benchmark across laundry payment experience
Participated in an ideation session with my team where various surface level concepts were shared. Our ideas spanned from extremely futuristic ways solve major pain points (e.g. a laundry render farm warehouse that picks up your loads via autonomous vehicle) to feasible present day options (e.g. proximity based beacon technology to unlock an appliance)
Phase 1: Persona Narratives
After narrowing down blue sky ideas, we took the most prominent client approved concepts and began developing unique user personas to demonstrate each use case concept at a much deeper level.
User story deck
User Story Highlights
Each user story focuses on specific scenario descriptions followed by diverse features that can be implemented within Whirlpool or Maytag branded commercial laundry apps.
Phase 2: Feasible MVP Wireframes
After sharing user stories with the client, we were tasked with creating a detailed user flow that could be implemented with their existing technology. One of the main challenges during this phase was clarifying what steps were essential for operating between machine and mobile device.
