-Sponsored Project by P&G Spruce
Bringing next-gen ease to weed-free lawn care
Starting my master’s journey at Northwestern, I took part in a 10-week, human-centered design studio course sponsored by Procter & Gamble. In this intensive course, I collaborated with four classmates to develop a next-generation product concept for Spruce, a new P&G brand aimed at outdoor care. While details of the project remain under NDA, I will provide an overview of my process below:
Time
Fall 2024
Skills
Design Research
Storyboard
Roadmapping
Prototyping
01
The Vision
Research shows that while 97% of consumers believe it's important to maintain the appearance of their yard, 55% are dissatisfied with their current weed control solutions. Recently launched by Procter & Gamble, Spruce offers products containing non-selective contact herbicides.
Our team has been tasked with designing the future of lawn care. Our vision is a truly hands-off solution that helps users maintain a weed-free lawn year-round with minimal effort.
02
Understand
The biggest challenge in starting this project was that lawn maintenance, especially weed control, felt distant from us as students. To bridge this gap, we divided the desktop research tasks, working together to understand the current market landscape and existing products. With this foundational knowledge, we conducted 8 in-home visits over two weeks, observing users’ lawn care practices, methods, and their pain points.
03
Define
After some initial concept generations, we conducted 2 rounds of Central Site Visits using stimuli to validate our ideas and better understand users' priorities for a truly hands-off product.
In this picture, I am guiding a user through a ranking exercise involving house cleaning products currently on the market. This activity helped us understand how users perceive the design, functionality, power, precision, and safety of these products.
04
Synthesizing
coming soon
Still WIP :)
05
Final Product
Unable to show due to NDA, reach out for more detail!
05
Learning
coming soon
Still WIP :)
Appreciate the Scroll