Northwestern University's Engineering Design Innovation
Product Design
Fall 2025
Strategic Direction for Innovation in Intimate Grooming
A Procter & Gamble partner-project uncovering product opportunities in an oversaturated category
My Roles:
Lead Researcher
Design Strategist
Narrative Architect
Key Insight
In categories defined by long-held routines, meaningful innovation must remove friction so convincingly that adopting a new habit or product feels safer and easier than staying with the old.
The tension: Users stay with familiar habits even when those habits create friction, frustration, and unnecessary cognitive load.
The direction: Reduce mental effort and create radical trust in a tool during a sensitive, repeated routine rather than merely improving performance.
Project Arc
Research Process
Approach
3 rounds of research (home interviews and central site research)
8 participants across diverse life contexts
Secondary research to frame existing market
Iterative synthesis of ideas between rounds
Purpose
Understand consumer behaviors and unmet needs
Identify emotional and functional motivations
Ground opportunities in real, contextualized user experiences
Rapport-building over time
Saw real rituals, tools, environments, constraints
Observed natural workarounds and adaptations
Identified emotional cues impossible to surface in staged settings
Long-standing routines persist even when they create frustration
Risk avoidance and habit inertia define adoption thresholds
Building trust creates space for candor
In-Home Interviews
We Learned…
The Hidden Half of the User Interview
Consumers traveled to our location to try materials and prototypes in a controlled environment
Tested interactions, expectations, and form assumptions
Explored desirability, ergonomics, and perceived confidence
Users often "told" prototypes what they wanted them to be; misinterpretation revealed meaningful form-language cues
Desirability hinged on emotional reassurance as much as functional capability
Clarity on interaction directly reduced cognitive load
Central-Site Visit Interviews
We Learned…
Guided consumers through a simulated shopping task to evaluate desirability and novelty across early product renders.
Design Development
Approach
Integrate consumer insights, form studies, and rapid prototyping to converge on the strongest value proposition
Purpose
De-risk the innovation pathway and deliver a concept direction that supports long-term development
Translated insights and HMWs into focused opportunity areas
Built low-fidelity prototypes to validate comfort and ergonomics
Prioritized concepts using feasibility, differentiation potential, and behavioral adoption thresholds
Integrating familiar material and aesthetic cues used in current market products supported trust in innovative forms and mechanisms
Concept Exploration
We Learned…
Exploring interaction through everyday objects to understand natural grip preferences and hand mechanics
Evolved priority concepts through iterative 3D modeling and rapid-print cycles
Reduced required user interactions by streamlining key touchpoints
Refined form language to enhance intuitiveness, leveraging cues that communicate orientation and correct handling
Minimizing steps in a routine isn’t just about efficiency– it directly impacts perceived effort and emotional readiness to adopt something new
Design Refinement
We Learned…
Evaluating form, mechanism alignment, and user touchpoints through successive 3D-printed prototypes
Solution
Our final direction will position safety, confidence, and ease as the core differentiators within a saturated category dominated by functional sameness.
More coming soon as we wrap up this project in December 2025…
