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 eight in-home visits over two weeks, observing users’ lawn care practices, methods, and—most importantly—their pain points and successes.

03

Define

We conducted 2 rounds of Central Site Visits using stimuli to better understand users' priorities for a truly hands-off product.