SWIFFER
The Live Well team collaborated with P&G to experiment a new sprint model. The 15-week semester was divided into 3 sprints, all of them focusing on consumer research.
From 2014 to 2022, P&G partnered with the Live Well Collaborative to study consumer interactions with Swiffer products, from store shelf education to unpacking, assembly, and use. Live Well conducted in-home and in-store research with 79 consumers, generating hundreds of hours of video, numerous images, and valuable product insights. This project aimed to develop a research repository of Swiffer insights across product lines, highlight best practices, and create AI-driven personas based on the consumers the teams engaged with.
Research
During the previous semesters’ work on Swiffer, Live Well conducted product concept workshops with 65+ consumers, ergonomic assessments, retention studies, and in-home interviews. The research primarily involved in-home and in-store interactions to evaluate consumer ergonomics, cleaning habits, and needs. Interviews lasted between 1 and 2.5 hours, depending on scope and location. Additionally, the team conducted in-store audits and human factors research to assess mobility. In total, Live Well engaged 69 older adults, 10 Millennials, and 206 total research sessions.
Synthesis
During the synthesis phase, the team was faced with the challenge of understanding, summarizing, and processing a large volume of content—and figuring out how to organize and make sense of it.The team categorized these findings into the “moments of truth" across the product journey, including the store experience, unpacking, assembling, use, retention, and storage. Because the project focused on three different products (the Swiffer Sweeper, WetJet, and Duster), the team organized the findings separately for each product.From these compiled findings, the team was able to generate insights — both positive and negative — for each moment of truth and each product. (Example: negative assembly insights from the Swiffer Duster.)
Additionally, the team produced several byproducts from this work, including a best practices section for better design opportunities, as well as a set of AI Personas. Interactive AI Personas are personas, based on primary and secondary research, that are given a voice using generative AI. You can ask questions, and it will respond with accurate information that an individual might provide about a product or an experience.
Visualization
For the final visualization of this project, the team created an interactive PowerPoint presentation designed for P&G staff to understand the Live Well Swiffer findings gathered over the years. This format was chosen to serve as a "living document”, one that could easily be updated and transferred across P&G servers. Not only can the tool be updated with new information as needed, but it also operates within a familiar workspace for a wide range of employees.While using this tool, stakeholders can navigate to different sections based on what they are looking to explore. The structure includes an overview of the project, general best practices for designing Swiffer products, findings across product lines (for Duster, Sweeper, and WetJet) organized by the moments of truth, and in-depth AI personas tool to facilitate conversations with the research.Within each section, quotes, photos, videos, and secondary resources are embedded to provide both informative and visual takeaways.
IdentityThe primary goal of this 4-week project, sponsored by Procter & Gamble, is to deepen the understanding of sensorial/emotional Air Care consumers by conducting comprehensive research to identify unmet needs and opportunity areas. The project aims to explore how these consumers experience and prioritize odor elimination versus sensory enhancement. P&G is seeking to innovate and create elevated air care solutions that better serve diverse consumer needs, especially those who are seeking Air Care products for more emotional needs.
The target audience for this project includes consumers who utilize Air Care products, with particular focus on individuals seeking not only odor elimination but an enhanced sensory or emotional experience. These consumers may have distinct preferences based on their demographics, lifestyles, and emotional needs, which the project will aim to understand and incorporate into future product development.
Research and Methodologies
In the research phase, we conducted both secondary and primary research to understand how consumers engage with air care products and the jobs these products fulfill in the home. Our secondary research focused on existing product offerings, exploring function, appearance, and scent, as well as trend research in personal care with a focus on identifying transferable elements. We examined how different scents are assigned to moods or tasks and compared this to what consumers shared in interviews. These insights helped us refine our focus on how aesthetic preferences connect to emotional jobs-to-be-done (JTBD), especially among consumers who prioritize ambiance and mood-setting.For primary research, we conducted eight, one-hour remote interviews with participants recruited through Respondent, all of whom had both functional and emotional JTBD. We also looked at transcripts, videos, and insights from interviews previously conducted by P&G with Nashville consumers. Our discussion guide, adapted from this study, helped us explore consumer habits, decision-making, and product associations. We learned that consumers often do not distinguish between brands and products: familiarity drives loyalty. Scents are used intentionally to reflect moods, and choices are heavily influenced by room context, ingredients, and packaging. These insights led us to shift away from rigid product categories and toward a flexible, needs-based segmentation model that reflects the overlap between Home Care, Me Care, and Home Fragrance.
Deliverables
Our team synthesized all research findings into a structured framework to guide our final deliverables. We identified five core user needs: Ritual, Aesthetics, Vibe Setting, Control My Environment, and Clean Clean Clean, mapped on a triangular diagram representing internal needs, external needs, and odor elimination. We categorized air care products within this framework to show how different products align with specific consumer motivations, from emotional ambiance to functional odor control. This helped us refine our concepts by emphasizing the range of needs, influencing how and why consumers use air care products throughout the home.Our final deliverables included four interactive AI personas, each shaped by 2–3 user needs based on insights from our interviews. These personas demonstrate how needs overlap depending on context, such as household makeup or room-specific priorities. We also mapped out typical product use by room to highlight where consumers use certain products and for what purpose. To ensure usability and clarity, we compiled all of our findings into an interactive PowerPoint designed for easy navigation by the P&G team. The presentation includes research purpose, key insights, trend analysis, product perceptions by room, the needs framework, and the personas, providing a comprehensive yet accessible summary of our work.
The team was tasked with understanding the daily challenges and tensions experienced by individuals with high BMI, specifically through the lens of P&G products and categories, and to identify potential opportunity areas to better serve their needs.
Research
The team hypothesized that there would be differences in high BMI individuals and others with mobility challenges and physical restrictions. What the team found instead was something much bigger — we heard and observed the lived experience of a stigmatized group, existing in a world that is not built for them.Research
The team conducted various forms of primary and secondary research, including seven in-home interviews and one pilot interview with Cincinnati area residents living with excess weight, obesity, or BMI. They also conducted expert interviews with a primary care provider and a physical therapist to gather insights on their experiences interacting with individuals with high BMI. Additionally, the team performed a comparative shopping exercise, visiting different retail locations to observe how companies targeted — or overlooked — this consumer group and to uncover valuable insights.For secondary research, the team performed thorough investigations at multiple levels. This included a literature review of clinical and sociological publications, analysis of CDC, Ohio, and local Hamilton County data on high BMI and socioeconomic factors, trend research, and sentiment analysis examining social media trends, online conversations, and platform-specific differences.The team analyzed topics such as "living as a high BMI individual," language use, and consumer product interactions. They also explored various trends, including childhood obesity, economic factors, and other relevant societal shifts.What the team discovered was far deeper than the initial hypotheses around mobility concerns and inclusive design. In reality, there was an entire story that needed to be heard and understood from these individuals.The team uncovered systemic challenges, patterns of inclusion and exclusion, cycles of motivation and demotivation, constant micro-decisions, and a vicious cycle of fear and discrimination. Many individuals felt the world was against them, shaping different life philosophies and coping mechanisms. There were countless micro- and macro-level themes at play.
Synthesis
The team collected a significant amount of valuable information and needed to find a way to create something powerful from it. With seven team members, we had unique perspectives approaching the project. Many were assigned to different interviewees, handled different tasks, and were learning different things. To bring it together, the team conducted a brain writing synthesis exercise where everyone shared eight key takeaways from the work they had done so far. Everyone had strong insights, and it was exciting to discuss them all together.This led into the next part of the synthesis phase, where the team conducted a sensemaking exercise to visually interweave and connect everything we had found. What we discovered was that everything was threaded together, each insight flowing naturally into another.Instead of isolated insights, a larger story was unfolding—a story of scenarios, characters, and plots, with different macro and micro themes layered underneath each one.The next challenge became clear: How do we tell the 100+ stories our team uncovered to P&G in under two hours?
Visualization
While under a time crunch during this design sprint, the team explored the best ways to present a large amount of information in a research showcase. Benchmarking, ideating, and free thinking were crucial at this stage.What the team ultimately landed on was a collage-style, pick-and-grab format — both visual and physical — that brought our story to life. The team decided to move away from the traditional final PowerPoint deliverable used in the previous two sprints, believing an interactive format would have greater impact.Instead, the team built an analog board showcase called the Exhibition of Findings, which walked through the key elements of the story: scenarios, characters, and plot. Under each element lived several macro themes, with nested micro themes beneath them. These were supported by research findings, quotes from interviews, academic and clinical studies, social media analyses, imagery, opportunity areas for P&G, and countless other artifacts the team felt were important to share.For the final report-out, the team presented a PowerPoint to explain the process, played audio clips of powerful stories and quotes to help P&G members build empathy, and facilitated a hands-on workshop. Each team member took a piece of the story and shared individual experiences from the people we interviewed.The impact was incredible. Sponsors reported that through interacting with the Exhibition they truly empathized with these individuals and came to understand that the story went far beyond mobility challenges and product usage.
Debrief
During the presentation, team highlighted 3 opportunity areas for P&G:
1. Messaging and Communication
2. Inclusive Design
3. Co-Design
The Live Well Collaborative (LWC) partners with the P&G Swiffer team to envision products that can create a shift in consumers' cleaning and chore sharing behaviors. This collaborative research aims to reassess the shopping, unboxing, assembly, and use of Swiffer products by 65+ year olds & gain Swiffer Duster insight to Millennial families with children 6-10. This is in support of Swiffer's North Star to continue its journey on inclusivity & "sharing the chores in a household.
The LWC team did shop-alongs with consumers and then did in home observations of their cleaning habits and how they interact with Swiffer products they purchased. The LWC team also collaborated with the P&G team to in home test new concepts and prototypes.
The Livewell team began the framing process with secondary research into Social-cultural, Economical, Political, Technological, and Environmental (STEEP) factors that had relation to laundry, aging, and disabilities in order to gain key insights. After gathering the key insights, they were synthesized to create trend themes that would then be researched further. The team then conducted primary research, interviewing six OAs, (two couples and two single), four PLDs, and three caregivers. With the insights gathered from these interviews, the Livewell team analyzed the consumer’s laundry journeys and created synthesis diagrams of their particularities, cues, compensatory behaviors, and more.
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The Livewell team started the exploration phase by benchmarking different disabilities through social media applications such as Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit. The insights found from different influencers guided the creation of the inspirational design consumers (IDCs). To further inspire the IDCs, the team went back to previous stakeholders (three OAs, two PLDs, and two caregivers) and revisited them for a second-round of interviews. The key insights found from the interviews and social media benchmarking resulted in six inspirational design consumers. To further understand how these IDCs feel during the laundry process, the Livewell team conducted an empathy exercise and found opportunity areas in their laundry journeys. As a result, the team created journey maps that detailed the IDC’s laundry tensions paired with videos found through social media to create empathy and focus for continued ideation.
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For the create phase, the Livewell team continued with ideation. From the journey maps created, the team highlighted key tension areas and crafted design themes and requirements. The tensions found with the IDCs’ laundry journeys were then connected to the 7 finalized concepts to establish how these concepts would help different persons with disabilities. The Livewell team utilized a madlib exercise to create prompts that were influenced by primary and secondary research along with design requirements. These prompts were then used to produce 305 concepts. Of these concepts, the team clustered 7 that best solve for key tension areas and further develop those concepts.
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To close out the semester, P&G have been handed the necessary tools to understand the potential of designing solutions for inclusivity. The Livewell team established the empathetic foundation, so now it is up to P&G to take the tools given, such as, journey maps, one pager methods, ideation inspiration, and empathetic videos, to design solutions for underserved cohorts.
The Live Well team collaborated with P&G and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to explore a low-cost intervention to improve air quality and asthma morbidity in the homes of lower income asthma patients. Inspired by DIY air purifiers such as the Corsi-Rosenthal box made during the COVID-19 pandemic, the product consisted of a box fan and a filter made from Swiffer material. The team measured the environmental benefit of prototype devices in 10 participant's homes, along with usage data to identify how a participant would use the product. The study insights aimed to help in the creation of a potential clinical study protocol as well as provide input toward design improvements for the early stage product.
Defining the User & Data Collection
Live Well’s multidisciplinary team used design tools and consumer interactions to identify consumer habits, lifestyle, and attitudes as related to the air quality in their home. In-home interviews and observations allowed the team to understand the potential impact for the product and how it could be improved. In-home sensors collected technical data to support early hypotheses on trends in fan usage and effectiveness.
The main insights at this stage were as follows:
1. Factors such as central air, proximity to a highway, and smoking within the home constrained the ability to alter the home's air quality. Similarly, these factors as well as the outdoor air quality, made it difficult to track the effect of the product.
2. Many homes of target consumers have limited space available for the product to be placed.
3. Consumers who have an interest in improving air quality enjoy the product and make more engaged study participants.
4. Consumers value the air circulation the fan provides.
Prototyping & Improvement
The team continued to interact with the study participants and gather insights on the product’s effectiveness and design. Continuous check-ins helped to gather what participants liked about the product, what they wished was different, if they would buy it and in what price range. The team learned that participants wanted a more aesthetically pleasing product that was low cost and took up less space in the home. While brainstorming, the team considered how to make the filter easily replaceable for the consumer while maximizing the filter’s surface area. The team also discussed other potential use cases of the product, such as home renovations.
Case Studies
The team collected ten weeks worth of technical data for each study participant, along with insights on their behavior and attitudes. This information was condensed into case studies to portray a holistic view of each participant. The case studies captured consumer thoughts on the product, air quality over time, and overall contribution to the study. The team summarized their insights on the study process into suggestions for the creation of a clinical study protocol in the future.
Product Designs
The team developed three suites of possible filter designs and attachment methods based on the findings from the pilot study. The designs aim to address the need for a simply packaged filter that can be replaced easily by the user while maintaining enough surface area to filter efficiently.
The Live Well Collaborative (LWC) partners with the P&G Swiffer team to envision products that can create a shift in consumers' cleaning and chore sharing behaviors. This collaborative research aims to reassess the shopping, unboxing, assembly, and use of Swiffer products by 65+ year olds & gain Swiffer Duster insight to Millennial families with children 6-10. This is in support of Swiffer's North Star to continue its journey on inclusivity & "sharing the chores in a household.
The LWC team did shop-alongs with consumers and then did in home observations of their cleaning habits and how they interact with Swiffer products they purchased. The LWC team also collaborated with the P&G team to in home test new concepts and prototypes.
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For the first research phase, the aim was to learn about consumers’ purchase decision-making process, as well as their cleaning and chore-sharing habits. The goal with the least intervention and bias as possible. We conducted shop-along and in-home interviews with 10 millennials and 10 older adults. We observed how consumers viewed and chose Swiffer products in store, how they unboxed, assembled and used Swiffer products at home. From our interactions, we gathered consumer pain points and opportunities for the Duster, Sweeper and Wet Jet to share with the Swiffer team to prepare for the ideation phase.
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During the ideation phase, we completed the second round of home visits for 10 older adults and 10 millennials. We focused on how users thought of the products after interacting with them for a few weeks and focused on consumers’ dusting habits. After the interviews, we brainstormed possible solutions with thumbnail sketching and group ideation activities. During the ideation report out, we co-created with the Swiffer team using the consumer archetypes we mapped out as guidelines.
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We went back to 17 of our participants with new variations of Duster instructions (created by the Swiffer and Live Well team) and new Duster attachment, refill and storage concepts. We aimed to find out what the most intuitive and helpful instructions mean to users and their feedback on the new attachment methods and refill options. We collected feedback and insights from participants and synthesized key recommendations based on findings from all 3 phases for the Swiffer team to move forward with.
Download Refinement PresentationAfter presenting our findings to the Swiffer Team, we refined the presentation even more, highlighting our insights across all three phases and packaging key videos for the core Swiffer team to use to debrief other members of the team. We focused on current habits of users, their values, and their thoughts on the new prototypes.
Live Well is collaborating with P&G for the project is to take a look at understanding how housing trends of today could create different home life futures of tomorrow. Creating new stories about how home life is evolving will enable us to identify new Jobs To Be Done and breakthrough innovations for those jobs. Here the Live Well team will help to research and develop future living scenarios.
In the research phase, our first step was secondary research which focused on population data for the year 2020-2060, literature review for multigenerational living; demands for housing and future living; and trend research. In each section of secondary research, we pulled out themes, key insights, and macro/micro trends on what the future living scenario would be. The second step was primary research, where we interviewed 18 people from diverse fields and communities to understand their values, pain point, desires, and laundry habits. Formulating everything from the interviews we developed archetypes. These archetypes helped us develop unarticulated needs of togetherness, access, space, and reliability where we created a matrix to plot all of the archetypes.
The archetype mapping helped us generate opportunities in areas with major bucketing in wellness, tech+DIY, and community. From each, we pulled out key points that we could further investigate. Here we established many key takeaways and one of being ‘home’ as a construct. We discovered that in each of the quadrants with archetypes we understood their living situation, the role of tech, and trend relation. In each quadrant with a different aspect, we moved on to our next phase of ideation.
In our ideation phase, we further went deep dive into our archetype matrix and simultaneously worked on secondary research on migration patterns for the future. The data on migration patterns help us to tie everything back to trench research and literature review. In the first ideation session, we spent 3 minutes each on living scenarios and the role of tech in all the archetypes for possible solutions according to quadrants. Their values and unmet needs guided our brainstorming sessions on their potential living situations, relationships, and the role of technology in their lives.
In the second session after clubbing all the ideas with similar ideas, we established that there can be scenarios for each quadrant of the matrices (Archetype Mapping). We did an AEIOU (Activities, Environment, Interaction, Objects, and Users) activity with the design team of the sponsors to help create a scenario structure foreach quadrant and one extra. We developed five final scenarios after identifying overlapping themes in the living scenario and the role of laundry. During the report out with the research and development team, we did an activity with them to identify jobs to be done for each scenario in the role of laundry. Every scenario had unarticulated needs with major themes to find the possible concepts for the next phase of ideation.
From our last phase of ideation 1, we moved to second ideation development for further investigation on the final scenarios to find solutions. Each scenario has different living conditions such as Multigen, Transient lifestyle, Forever together, Airbnb/rental property, and Multi-unit apartment building. Pulling out key themes from jobs to be done for the role of laundry, we identified laundry pain points and established design requirements for each situation.
Based on design requirements, we started our concept by having a thought starter on ‘What ifs’. This helped us to discover concepts for each scenario by having what it would be like using analogous thinking exercises and giving a unique name. Putting all the concepts together we came up with an opportunity statement on how might sponsors leverage these future scenarios to create solutions to own the whole laundry experience. We have concepts that range from products to services to business models to bring all together for 5 different situations in their entire laundry experience.
The sponsors needed all the scenario poster and all presentation files for them use for future reference and leveraging that as concept builder.
There is an opportunity for a holistic/integrated approach to enable greater accessibility, comprehensive information management and enhanced consumer experiences via AI enabled analytics as we explore IoT possibilities across the Smart Home Landscape. The Live Well Collaborative will partner with the P&G Team to envision a connected home that provides new experiences that integrate: P&G Knowledge, P&G Products, and Partner Connected Products.
During the research phase, the Live Well team benchmarked and researched the ecosystem of smart home technology, P&G IoT products, smart tech trends, and consumer beliefs and personal values around smart home technology. The team also created an online survey to gage the perception consumers have pertaining to smart home technology and were able to get a total of 92 responses. At the end of this phase, the team focused the direction of the project towards ideating ways to help P&G’s consumers manage the cleaning tasks in their home, consumable products, and reduce the stress of caregiving.
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During the ideation phase, the Live Well team started with a brainstorming session on post-it notes and sorted and bucketed them into different categories.
Once ready to start sketching and ideating potential concepts, the team broke out into groups of three and brainstormed together as a group. The team decided on four different concepts areas, Sensors, Shopping, Planning, and Cleaning. Then, using Miro, the team conducted 7 co-creation sessions with different consumers for feedback and refinement.
A few insights that were gained throughout the process were that some of the concepts could be combined into one app so the solution could be more universal, and the new device being developed would have to differentiate itself from an Alexa speaker.
At the start of the refinement phase, the Live Well team refined each concept and ended with 3.5 different concepts that can work together to form a suite of services.
The final concepts included: Smart Sensors, Smart Packaging, an integrated app,and a new device. The Live Well team then created a new brand for P&G that included their existing brands to showcase how this new suite could be integrated into their current work force. This new brand is entitled, Tru, Care for your loved ones, yourself, and your home.
For the final presentation, the team developed persona stories to introduce each concept, renderings and sketches of how the products might look, and developed UX/UI app screens to show how a user might interact with the service.
After the final presentation to the core stakeholder team at P&G, the Live Well team packaged all of the presentation files for hand-off.
The team also created an additional 16 slides (trends research and consumer insights) into each concept category to clarify some of the decision making the team made throughout the semester.
Lastly, three of the team members recorded themselves presenting the final presentation so that the P&G stakeholder team could send the recording to their coworkers so that the project could continue internally within P&G.
The project kicked off on May 13th, 2019. The problem area was identified because of the increased incidence and media coverage of Insect Borne Diseases (Zika, Lyme, Dengue, Malaria, West Nile, etc.) and repelling insects (mosquitoes, ticks, flies, Chiggers, fleas, etc.) on an ongoing basis as a consumer need. The size of the insect repellency category is expected to double in $ over next 10 years. This represents an interesting white space opportunity area for P&G Fabric Care.
The team began phase one by visiting the insect repellent and laundry detergent areas in several surrounding stores. They examined, purchased, and documented products from Kroger, Target, Fresh Market, Whole Foods, CVS, and Walgreens. This activity was done in the hope of understanding the existing landscape of insect repellent and laundry care. The team also conducted a series of in-home interviews with 22 participants from three different consumer groups: young professionals, mothers, and older adults. Both activities led to key, invaluable hypotheses for the project.
Using their hypotheses, the team created a series of product prototypes. These prototypes were intended to test different values articulated by the hypotheses. They conducted 5 focus groups with 19 participants, where the participants were asked questions about the products they would use, what they liked about them, what they disliked about them, and which situations they would be used in. The team also conducted co-creation sessions with the participants where they were asked to create their own ideal product. As a result, the team developed the value of the repellency solution as a pyramid of brand equity (developed using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, P&G’s brand equity pyramid, and the value opportunity assessment).
In phase three of the project, the team further expanded on the prototypes and developed the core consumer group personas. They were encouraged to widen their prototype horizons and try outlandish ideas for potential product solutions. These solutions were shown in the framework of specific personas: Amanda, the Wellness Mama, Paige, the Young Professional, and Bob, the Retired Hobbyist. The final description of the personas included the translation of the brand equity pyramid into specific product attributes.
The studio concluded with the Live Well team presenting their key requirements for a potential product solution. Each consumer group has individual needs, and their products reflect the needs in the form of specific requirements.
The Live Well Collaborative will partner with the P&G Team to envision the opportunity to create a Female Intimate Beauty, Health & Wellness brand that serves the needs of all women, regardless of age, behind a brand with a contemporary female POV of intimacy and wellbeing. The intent is to offer Rx-level relief without the tradeoffs of either Rx (safety, cost, accessibility) or OTC (sex aide prejudices, poor aesthetics).
The Live Well team will utilize their female consumer base ranging in the life stages of adolescence, reproductive, menopausal / post-reproductive and mature / post-menopausal that are available to them through their network of groups, institutes and organizations such as OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute), the school of nursing, women's studies, students at the University of Cincinnati, and personal networks of women to understand unmet consumer needs for the wellbeing of the intimate area, create, and refine consumer product experience and communication opportunities for intimate health and wellness.
Benchmarking
The Live Well team benchmarked future technologies and start-up companies in the field of women’s health and vaginal wellness (Clue, The Flex Company, Elvie). This helped the team to understand where the future of feminine care products exists. The Live Well team also heavily benchmarked the current consumer product market to become experts on what today’s market scope looks like across feminine care and women’s wellness brands (Kotex, Summer’s Eve, and Vagisil). This heavy research helped to drive ideas that are innovative, aesthetically pleasing, and technologically advanced within their market. As part of the benchmarking phase, the team went to various stores (Kroger, CVS, Target, Walgreens, etc.) to better understand the current consumer market. Variety of products, presentation, layout, and placement in the store was noted and analyzed.
Consumer Research
The team created a 15-question survey and shared it with women around the world. The questions were designed to understand the types of vaginal issues they’ve experienced, the types of products or routines they regularly use or perform, where/when they get their information, and how positively they feel about their vaginal health. A total of 324 responses were received and analyzed based on factors such as age, ethnicity, and level of education. The Live Well team also developed activities for a number of focus group meetings with female consumers. 3 meetings were held and called “Wine Wednesdays.”
Archetype Development
The Live Well team created 7 different archetypes to represent the consumers. These personas aimed to connect to today’s women and create empathy by fully understanding their lives. Each team member was assigned a different ethnicity, income level, and hobby, and the archetypes were visually created through imagery. They then mapped out each of their lives from birth to death, including all major life events relating to their health and wellness. Each archetype was also assigned health-related problems or symptoms to experience and, in turn, overcome. This provided a strong starting point for the development of brands and potential product solutions.
Brand Creation
The archetypes were split into groups – each group was designed so they included various ethnic backgrounds, income levels, and hobbies. From these groups, three new brands, Plum, Dash, and Proclaim, were developed based on the wants and needs of these pairings. Each brand had its own brand identity, mission, and aesthetic, and provided products and services tailored to their specific consumers.
Consumer Feedback
The Live Well team presented the 7 archetypes and 3 brands to the consumers. The women discussed their initial thoughts on the brands, what the brand would sell, where they would find it, and which archetypes they most personally related to.
Fishbone Diagram Development
The Live Well team implemented several methods of organizing research in order to better understand the findings gathered in previous phases. The team began by creating fishbone diagrams for six major categories: Holistic Health, Education, Fluid Control, Tracking, Hormone Loss, and Intimacy & Sex. These diagrams helped to break each topic into sub-issues and symptoms in order to identify consumer tensions.
Consumer Tension Study &
Final Design Criteria
The Live Well team gathered the feedback from Wine Wednesday and expanded the sub-issues into three areas: consumer tensions, technical problems, and consumer adoption. Understanding the root consumer tensions helped the team to identify the technical problems that hinder consumer adoption, and to develop final design criteria that “must be true” to implement solutions for each category.The Live Well team created media opportunities using generational research as benchmarks to ensure that all age ranges would be reached. The final solutions included a poster series/advertisement, a Facebook account post, an Instagram account post, and a series of podcasts.
The Live Well team presented the final deliverables, including overviews of the research and ideation phases, to all members of the P&G team as well as other P&G representatives in the women’s wellness “universe room.” After the short presentation, both teams walked around the room to look into the images, diagrams, and charts more thoroughly. The P&G team then prompted a discussion with the Live Well team, asking questions about research takeaways, which deliverables should have the most focus, and what information was most personally impactful.
The Challenge
Part III of the Swiffer Ergonomic study focused on testing the improved packaging, assembly, and usage instructions from the challenges identified by Live Well during the previous two semesters of the project. Additionally, the Live Well team aimed to gain an understanding of habit adoption by consumers utilized in Part I and II. Key areas of focus when interacting with the consumer group included identifying how often they used each of the products, understanding ways that the products were improving their quality of life, identifying refill purchasing habits, and understanding how the products were influencing storage behavior for both device and refills.
The Approach
23 of the original 30 consumers participated in both in-home and in-store interactions. The first interaction began in consumers’ homes, observing the unpackaging and assembly experiences of the three product lines (i.e. Duster, Sweeper, and WetJet). The team asked consumers to identify their preferred method of opening and assembly when given several options from each product line, and observed any difficulty or confusion the consumers had when unpackaging and assembling the products.
The teams used user feedback to inspire conceptual product solutions.
Two weeks later, the teams returned for a second interaction in which they took consumers to the store and observed their experience purchasing refills.
The Results
The team presented data analysis and future opportunities for packaging redesign, store shelf experience, and refill packaging.
Packaging Redesign
The packaging was redesigned to make it as easy and seamless as possible for consumers to open and assemble the product.
Store Shelf Redesign
Education at the store shelf was implemented to give consumers a guided experience when purchasing
products and refills.
Refill Analysis
Refill packaging was redesigned so that consumers could easily understand and use the refills included with starter kits.
The Opportunity
The Live Well team was asked to initiate a second round of research to determine if the Swiffer brand continues to meet the economic needs of the 65+ consumer, as related to prior assessments for the Swiffer brand conducted by Live Well.
The Challenge
P&G hoped to ascertain the retention of the Swiffer products with 65+ consumers. The Live Well team worked to determine when and where habit formation begins for this consumer, and how to incorporate a new product in their household.
The Approach
28 of the original group of consumers returned to participate in one round of interviews. The interviews were conducted 5 months after the initial purchase of the Duster, Sweeper, and WetJet and the interviews that followed. The Live Well team aimed to discover information regarding the following information categories: habit, ability, product storage, and refills.
Consumers shared what products they continued to use and which refills they purchased. The team compiled this information and analyzed it to understand the results.
The teams created detailed user types and personas to further classify user needs.
The Results
The Live Well presented a thorough analysis of the information gathered through interviews. Analysis included an evaluation of the quality of life of Swiffer users and concerns not being met for non-users, with a focus on habit formation. The team was then able to identify and understand different pillared user groups and their refill purchasing patterns.
Duster Frequency of Use Graph
The team created Frequency of Use graphs to visually represent how often consumers reported using Swiffer products.
Super Users
Through analysis of refill purchasing and usage habits, the 25 households were grouped accordingly. This map shows eight super users.
Demographic Population Statistics
25 Households were polled as to how many of the three Swiffer products they continued to use and if they bought refills.
The Opportunity
P&G and Live Well collaborated to conduct an in-depth ergonomic analysis of the 65+ demographic. The team was asked to analyze consumer buying and cleaning habits, physical ailments, and the impact of these factors on the use of Swiffer products.
The Challenge
Though there is an increased desire to be independent, the 65+ demographic is finding it more difficult to clean their homes. This is due to joint replacements, arthritis, and other ailments.
The Approach
30 consumers participated in a series of in-store and in-home interviews. The consumer purchased three products: the WetJet, Sweeper, and Duster. At the store, the team collected ergonomic data of the consumer’s interaction with shelf displays. The team observed how the products were unpackaged and assembled at the consumer’s home, and gathered dexterity data. Finally, the consumers gave their initial opinions of the products.
The team continued to gather insights and used these to drive iterative concepts.
One month later, the team returned for a second interview with consumers to gather additional ergonomic information. The consumers shared their experiences using the products for multiples weeks.
The Opportunity
P&G’s Charmin brand approached the Live Well Collaborative with the task of creating an alternative to traditional toilet paper. While there has been improvements in the toilet paper industry, the original toilet paper design has gone unchanged for the last century. P&G sees two main problems with toilet paper: (1) current toilet paper does not get consumers completely clean and (2) the overall consumer experience is negative and considered “disgusting and unsanitary.” The goal of the project is to identify interfacial mechanisms that allow consumers to achieve a more optimum level of clean while enhancing the overall consumer experience.
To conclude the research phase of the project, Live Well presented their work to P&G. Each team presented their two themes and ten manifestations. The original themes presented were: adhesion, homogeneous, feedback, plucking, encapsulate, and texturize. Each theme addressed a different challenge within the problem statement. The manifestations show where they exist in the natural and mechanical worlds.
The P&G team was then asked to evaluate the themes and pick three to use for ideation. After nearly forty-five minutes of deliberation, they chose to create three new categories for the Live Well team: containment, extract, and residual removal. The categories addressed broke the process into phases based on the main challenges.
After, the teams completed a SWOT analysis around the three themes. Each Live Well member was joined by a P&G team member and worked with one category. P&G would like each team to focus mainly on solving the problem they were given but understanding that the solutions will be influenced by the adjacent phase’s solutions.
Over the course of the next month, the Live Well team will be moving into ideation and rough prototyping around the new themes.
During the ideation working session, each Live Well team presented their concepts to P&G. The work focused on the mechanisms needed to accomplish the goals of containment, extraction, and residual removal. To develop the concepts, the teams investigated, extracted, and ideated the aspects of a prototype that was most effective at accomplishing their goal.
After the teams presented, P&G selected two concepts per team to refine and develop into 5-6 final concepts. The group discussed what P&G was looking for within the final prototypes and how they will be evaluated. They decided to test all concepts on Annie or the skin mimics for consistency and credibility.
Moving forward, members of the P&G team will attend Friday sessions to evaluate the prototyping directions. The teams will also participate in internal critiques with the faculty leads and nursing students as they refine prototypes.
The Live Well teams continued prototyping around their two selected concept mechanisms. After testing a prototype, the team assessed what was working and incorporated these elements into future iterations. At the end of the refinement process, each team will have 5-6 fully defined prototypes to present to P&G.
The Opportunity
P&G leveraged the high end fashion knowledge about materials, textiles, techniques, and design of the School of Fashion Design students to create prestige and super premium models of packaging technology that are high end in their shape, form, and decoration.
The Challenge
The design team was challenged to develop premium packaging based on “luxury fashion design construction methods” that re-imagine and re-invent the user experience for high-end (aspirational) consumers using new packaging technology.
The team visited the P&G Beckett Ridge Technical Center (BRTC) to conduct research. They developed limitations, opportunities, design requirements/ elements, and ideation inspiration. They worked toward making these packages unique but recognizable, how they might be placed on shelves, and how they might encourage users to be more responsible consumers through the design of these packages.
Experimentation
The team experimented with the textures, patterns, and prints they had collected through conceptual sketches.
The Results
The Penta-roll Final Collection
Experimenting with a variety of films, finishes, and colors enabled the team to create smart and stylish, yet playful, designs with a star quality that appeals to all archetypes.
The Odd Box Final Collection
Designed to accentuate angles and curves, these asymmetrical squares add interest and extravagance to the package. The product comes in a variety of film, color, and finish combinations.
The Opportunity
Live Well was tasked with identifying consumer driven solutions that re-imagine the personal care experience for the 65+ demographic. This collaboration endeavored to develop products for fully and partially independent seniors to easily and thoroughly clean their hair, teeth, and skin, even with reduced mobility, dexterity, flexibility, and strength.
The Challenge
A primary concern of the project was to enable consumers to have healthy, productive relationships for as long as possible—i.e. positive relationships with their partners, friends, and caregivers. Product solutions needed to alleviate care barriers existing within these relationships by providing solutions that make giving or receiving care less stressful and more pleasant.
The Approach
The students spoke with consumers from the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at the University of Cincinnati. They visited their homes to understand their care needs. These insights helped identify the main health issues, opportunity gaps, and tasks to be completed (i.e. enabling, preventing, enhancing, prolonging, simplifying, etc).
Click the links below to view consumer briefs:
Students developed product proposals from these areas.
Click below to view pdfs of initial concepts within specific beauty categories:
Students continued to use user insights to consolidate concepts and refine problem areas.
Through a consumer meet and greet, OLLI consumers came to the studio for a “perception” activity.
The Results
After deliberation, iteration, and refinement, students came up with three final concepts. These aimed to address the personal care needs of the aging consumer, as well as facilitate care-giving.
Peau Saine
A customizable skin care kit includes colors, numbers, and cloth-like handles that simplify skin care.
Blu
Using ultrasonic technology to achieve professional quality, whole mouth health at home.
Ultimate Hand and Food Care
The concept surrounds the whole hand and foot with memory foam and offers a multitude of services.
The Opportunity
The Live Well Collaborative was tasked with designing experiences that improve the lives of the aging population beyond wearers of oral prosthetic devices. The 65+ demographic makes up 1/3 of the U.S. population. They spend in excess of $2 trillion annually —more on themselves than any other generation. They also plan to live longer, better lives than previous generations.
The Challenge
The aging population is health focused and oral care is one of the top categories that are important to their health following over-the-counter medication and vitamins.
The Approach
Over the course of ten weeks, this multi-disciplinary studio focused on obtaining primary and secondary knowledge about oral care. Students visited oral care aisles of various stores, performed everyday oral care tasks while simulating the challenges associated with aging, and received expert insights from the Dental Hygiene Program at Raymond Walters College.
The team continued research and developed concepts carried over into the refinement process.
The team developed concepts to include the entire care journey to see which ideas were the best solutions given the consumer journey.
The Opportunity
Procter and Gamble’s Fixodent brand proposed a collaboration with Live Well to identify new product or service solutions for their oral prosthetic wearers.
The Challenge
The team aimed to identify concepts that persuade the consumer regarding trust, confidence, and care, while also maintaining a balance between short and long term technical feasibility.
The Approach
The multi-disciplinary teams mapped key themes to understand what quality, ease of use, confidence, and cleanliness mean to consumers. In-home interviews helped determine how dentures fit into consumer lifestyles. The teams created consumer debrief cards to document the denture-care journey. Inspired by the daily denture-care of consumers, students found three key opportunity areas for Fixodent: preparation, maintenance, and cleansing.
Students developed product proposals from these areas.
Download Concepts Presentation
Validation
These concepts were refined through a series of consumer validation and co-creation sessions.
The Opportunity
The Live Well multi-disciplinary student team was tasked to conduct an assessment of current P&G detergent packaging to determine preferences in bottle cap removal for the aging population.
The Challenge
The perceived and actual strength required to remove the cap from detergent varies significantly between users. The team aimed to acquire data to inform designers on the differences between perceived and actual use in cap design.
The Approach
The team examined the weight, height, bevel, ridge quality, and depth of current P&G packaging, and obtained user analysis by observing consumers in stores and their homes. Analysis included determining product preferences and observation while users opened detergent. The team’s in-studio activities revealed how much of the hand is used to open packaging. The team gathered further research through consumer sessions. Partnering with the UC Simulation Lab, they assessed grip strength and hand placement with detergent caps.
The team continued research and developed concepts carried over into the refinement process.
3D opening simulation
The lab helped create a 3D simulation of the body mechanics used in correlation with detergent caps. They were also able to propose solutions for consumer home testing to enable consumers to choose the proper grip for their personal needs.
The Opportunity
Procter & Gamble collaborated with Live Well to gain insights into the habits and preferences of the 50+ demographic and the products they use to mask and reduce body odor. The multi-disciplinary student teams were tasked with designing new concepts to improve the way consumers feel and smell fresh all day long.
The Challenge
The team hoped to ascertain how to create a connection between consumers from the 50+ demographic and new product alternatives. Consumers are fairly brand loyal; by properly leveraging the brand equity of familiar and trusted brands, P&G can increase the likelihood of creating 50+ early adopters to new technology.
The Approach
The team conducted in-depth user-centered research regarding the production and packaging of current antiperspirants and deodorants to find areas of opportunity. Market sub-categories such as mouthwashes, mints, gum, and breath strips were also analyzed. The students conducted in-home interviews with consumers, brought them to the studio for co-creation sessions, and visited companies that create marketing and packaging for these products.
The team brought to life their conceptual ideas through 2D illustrations.
13 final concepts were chosen from consumer interviews and panels, market research, and ideations. Concepts were refined as possible methods of changing the hygienic routines of the aging population.
Iontophoresis Technology
This rechargeable unit uses iontophoresis technology to reduce sweating. It features a replaceable plug-in scent unit to fight odor. The consumer can select to use only scent on the days when they are not using the ion technology.
Eco-Deodorant
This product is 100% biodegradable. It uses rock crystal to create an environment in which bacteria will not grow, preventing odor. The product appeals to consumers who appreciate natural health and wellness solutions and desire to reduce waste.
The Opportunity
Consumers of the 50+ demographic were raised on the notion that the U.S. has vast, inexhaustible resources. However, these consumer are coming to the realization that we live on a planet with finite materials.
The Challenge
The Live Well team was asked to develop a positive corporate message for P&G to help this consumer understand the value of concentrated formulations in smaller packaging.
The Approach
The project began with research concerning user impressions of compact products. The team found that “compaction” works as a positive corporate theme, but does not resonate with consumers. The team identified additional attributes that must be identified with smaller packaging in order for target consumers to embrace the benefits of compaction. They used this research to identify key benefit areas that minimized the issue of package size.
Students sketched concepts for Tide Compaction and tools to educate the demographic on the benefits of compaction. They also conceptualized scenarios that leveraged small product size to maximize consumer value. Finally, the teams designed models to test their concepts.
Compaction Action Heroes
These characters take advantage of cross-generational purchasing influences. By educating young consumers about compaction through heroes, they could in turn influence their parents’ and grandparents’ purchasing decisions.
Compaction Visualizations
These renderings demonstrate concepts for possible compacted Tide packaging.
The Opportunity
Live Well and P&G’s Pur brand collaborated to determine how Pur products could more positively provide and promote health, beauty, and wellness.
The Challenge
The team endeavored to extend Pur brand equity beyond drinking water to include the consumer experience of water in the bathroom.
The Approach
The team initiated research by determining the differences between kitchen and bathroom consumer experiences. They conducted an evaluation of the history of traditional bathing and how this history is affected by cultural influences. Students benchmarked current bathroom products and mapped consumer expectations. After gathering primary research through consumer interviews, the team identified reoccurring trends and pinpointed key opportunity areas.
Research documents below:
Opportunity areas were used as a catalyst for iterative sketches and prototypes.
Final Design Concepts:
Mikan Bath Ball
Drop-in, purifying bath balls have customizable aroma therapy capabilities.
SunLight Shower Head
The shower head provides light therapy, which helps the body produce melanin and vitamin D.
Facial Mist
This product includes a refillable, compact filtered mist dispenser.
Spa Shower Head
This modular, drop-in shower head has default filtration benefits.
The aim of this studio was to enhance the relationship of the boomer generation with their cats through the feeding experience. By understanding both user and pet needs, students were asked to ideate concepts that turn the everyday feeding task into an opportunity to strengthen pet-owner bonds.
Teams benchmarked products, conducted home interviews, analyzed video clips, and created task analysis. They identified three 65+ demographic feeding types: indulgent, immediate, and passive. The team also synthesized the various social, economic, and technological factors that contributed to different consumer shopping tendencies.
Download Research Presentation
Research and analysis guided the development of multiple concepts, which were refined by collecting user and professional feedback, adjacent are some examples.
Download Ideation Presentation
Logo Specification
Logo modifications allow for easy differentiation between IAMS dog and cat products.
Incredible Edible Bag: Play Reward
Cats are able to tear open the pod to reach food. These pods are constructed from a paper made from edible substrate, and fit into the accompanying food dish.
The Water Cooler: Freshness and Dosing
Food can now be kept out in the home, while visibly showing the IAMS branding. The cylindrical bag fits inside the unique feeding container. Bags also open for easier pouring, even without the container.
Single Serve: Branding, Information, Dosing
Pamphlets with food sample packets contain information specific to the cat’s age, weight, or species, and information on a healthy diet and IAMS history. The consumer mails the identification card to IAMS with the cat’s name, birthday, and vet name. In-store customers may use the IAMS regimen or choose their own combination of foods.
20 E Central Parkway
Cincinnati, OH 45202
*Entrance on Jackson St.
contactus@livewellcollaborative.org