Household Water and Drinking Water Innovation Opportunities Research Project
User recruitment management, interview execution, workshop execution
Background
Demands of household water and drinking water are increasingly segmented
With the improvement of consumption level and the popularization of water purification, consumers' awareness of water purification has gradually increased.
As a well-known domestic brand, Midea has strong strength and mastered industry-leading technologies. However, the technical barriers in household drinking water products are weak, and the industry competition is fierce. The improvement of technical barriers is only faster water purification speed and less loss. In this case, insight into user needs and the creation of a better life scene have become the top priority.
Therefore, Midea hopes to find innovation opportunities through in-depth user insights and lead the industry trend with innovative categories.
Midea expects to achieve the following goals through this innovative opportunity research project:
To explore the behaviors, attitudes, and characteristics of different households on daily water and drinking water to identify innovation opportunities for water and drinking water based on different scenarios.
Break away from products in existing market, explore the new direction of scene innovation that leads the “whole house water product platform”, and create innovative household water and drinking water solutions.
Form short-term and long-term product line planning (target groups, specific scenarios, solutions and related products involved, core selling points, etc.).
Planning
The whole project took about 7 weeks in total, the timeline is shown as below:
Research&Insights
In order to define emerging opportunity scenarios for household water use and derive industry and product development trends, we invited experts from the interior design industry and home appliance industry to conduct interviews to provide information basis for subsequent user interviews and co-creation.
As for user interview, we recruited 9 “extreme” users, who showed a high requirement for household water, which can even be described as "cleanliness obsession". So that more innovation opportunities can be found during the inhome interview.
Expert list & extreme user recruitment requirments
During inhome interview, researcher will record the customer's behavior, usage scenarios and feelings after the purchase experience; conduct interviews based on the user's usage scenarios after purchase to understand customers' attitudes and opinions about the existing product experience. Extract the characteristics and core needs of different types of users.
example of interviewee proile
At the end of research, 7 opportunity scenarios are identified, including 4 regular scenarios and 3 emerging scenarios.
Overview of opportunity scenarios and user demands
Co-Creation
With professional guidance and innovative co-creation process, the Midea team collaborates with multiple departments to efficiently produce innovative concept libraries and position innovative solutions for scenarios.
At the end of workshop, 3 main innovative scenario solutions are created.
Outcome
At the end of the project, three innovative scenario solutions are finalized, including drink making, gardening and personal care.
All of the concepts are visualized with story board and usage scenario instruction. It is a solid foundation for the client to implement the product planning line in the future.
After the project, Midea has launched a VC water purifier that matches the needs of users for personal care scenarios found in the project. More new products are still under development.
VC water purifier