Background

New product development (NPD) efforts as part of the Safe Water Project at PATH, Seattle, picked up the threads from where the Extended User Testing concluded (for more information on the preceding phases of research and design strategy executed by Quicksand, please refer to User Experience Research for Safe Water Strategies in BoP Markets).

As part of the NPD phase, Quicksand was given the mandate to design and develop a water treatment device for low-income consumer markets that would set new benchmarks for its category. The target specifications for the product were:

• a new price benchmark that was less than half the costs of existing products in the market
• a far superior usability from the point of view of product ergonomics, durability and robustness
• a comparable treatment efficacy but more stringent safe water criteria
• a product system that would make customization possible for different demographics and geographies

Quicksand collaborated with industrial design, engineering, technology and project management partners in the United States & India to steer product design and development. Our responsibilities as the product design partner included:

1. Guide the product development efforts from our position as the custodian of user experience data
2. Provide product design skills that leveraged our understanding of user experience with the constraints imposed by other aspects of the product strategy (namely engineering, technology, commercials, marketing and manufacturing)
3. Provide resources and research expertise in testing concepts developed by the product team with users and other stakeholders directly involved in the successful adoption of the product

Project Process

The project process that followed comprised the following four phases:

Phase 0: Discovery and Project Planning

Phase 1: Product concept development and evaluation

Phase 2: Alpha & beta concept design, development, prototyping & evaluation

Phase 3: Beta unit evaluation

Research Snapshots

Phase 0 & Phase 1 culminated in multiple reference design concepts in conformance with user experience, engineering, technology, commercial and manufacturability guidelines. The concepts went through an iterative cycle of prototyping, user testing & evaluation and subsequent redesigning to eventually culminate in a single beta concept.

From concept to functional beta prototypes, the project was successfully completed in 6 months navigating complex, multi-stakeholder collaborations across different time zones. The project team was able to meet all COGS (cost of goods sold) and UX (user experience) targets specified at the beginning of the project.

The field testing of beta units is pending and will follow the format of  the Extended User Testing study carried out earlier by Quicksand. PATH intends to foster commercial partnerships to introduce the products in emerging markets of India, Africa and South Asia.

PATH is an international, nonprofit organization that creates sustainable, culturally relevant solutions, enabling communities worldwide to break longstanding cycles of poor health. By collaborating with diverse public and private-sector partners, PATH helps provide appropriate health technologies and vital strategies that change the way people think and act. With headquarters in Seattle, USA, PATH has 28 offices in 18 countries and is funded by private foundations, the U.S. and foreign governments, multilateral agencies, corporations, and individuals.

Quicksand was commissioned by PATH, Seattle to conduct an Extended User Testing (EUT) study (funded in turn by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation under the Safe Water Project), over ten months – between March to December 2009 – across rural, peri-urban and urban settlements in Andhra Pradesh, India. The purpose of the EUT Study was to inform the Safe Water Project team at PATH about user experiences that are key to a successful and relevant product strategy for low cost household water treatment and storage (HWTS) products targeted at base of the pyramid markets. By studying how participants interacted with and used selected products in their home over 6 months, Quicksand helped the Safe Water Project team in integrating these findings into product commercialization and product design.

Quicksand was subsequently brought in to lead the product development phase to convert the research findings into tangible proof-of-concepts for a low cost, gravity fed, multi-stage water treatment device. The project involved collaboration between Quicksand, as industrial design and user experience experts, and engineering, manufacturing and project management teams based in Seattle. More detailed description on the new product development activity can be found in a follow-up post titled “Product Innovation for Base of Pyramid”.

Extended User Testing

As part of the User Experience (UX) study, five commercially available, multi stage gravity filters were placed in 20 low-income households as surrogates to understand users’ expectations and interactions with HWTS products.

The Quicksand study team employed a wide variety of UX research methods to document the everyday lives of users and understand the usage of these filters as time progressed. The methods used were:

• Video ethnography & shadowing sessions (by following users at work and home over several days)
• In-depth and in-context interviews and discussions with household and community members
• Role plays
• Participatory design workshops (focus groups and co-design workshops)
• Feature preference exercises (to elicit users’ aesthetic preferences, comparative evaluation of products & hypothesized responses to scenarios)
• Self administered probes (through disposable cameras handed out to participants)

The key stages of the study were as follows:

• Location reconnaissance (March 2009) to understand the use context and identify suitable locations for the research. The locations were selected on the basis of water availability or scarcity in that region, water quality, incidence of water related problems and the economic status of residents of that region.
• Establishing the baseline context (April 2009) with respect to the water ecosystems (water sources, public utilities and government or civil society interventions if any), individual awareness and adoption of water treatment practices, consumer behavior towards durable products and their lifestyle aspirations and ambitions.
• Product placement (May 2009) of selected water filters in each household and observing initial interactions of users with the products, device setup, assembly & problems faced therein.
• Codesign workshops (June 2009) to involve potential users in creating their ideal filter concepts.
• Revisiting households (July-September 2009) to study changes in use behavior, product breakdowns, adaptations & user workarounds after one, two, four and six months of product use.
• Assimilating research findings into top level insights, product concepts & systems (October-November 2009) to help extended teams understand implications of observed user behavior and to kick-start preliminary product development
• Detailed synthesis and documentation (January 2010) to create report formats that make the study findings accessible to a larger community of commercial partners, academics, public health experts and health practitioners. The deliverables consisted of a narrative report formatted in web and print medium.

While the EUT study conducted by Quicksand provided critical findings & recommendations that facilitated a holistic HWTS product strategy for BoP markets, it also provided a framework for an insightful process of research and design pertinent to product development for low-income populations.

Film on Codesign Workshop

Product Placement Observations

Film on product placement

QUEST Alliance is a not-for-profit that focuses on research-led innovation in education and vocational training. QUEST has launched Livelihood Connect as a platform for multiple and varied stakeholders in the area of employability training and livelihoods, to connect and share knowledge with each other and collectively ideate and collaborate to come up with relevant and innovative solutions. The platform will manifest through a web portal, workshops, seed grants, summits and print publications.

We spent time in the field for two months observing and documenting what people  (students, facilitators, organizations, employers) had to say about their experiences in various livelihood contexts. This evolved into specific insights and a livelihood journey which provided inspiration and direction for the innovation workshop, as well as seed content on the knowledge platform in the form of video, stories, profiles and discussions. During the workshop we also ran a co-design session with stakeholder groups in order to build stakeholder-relevance into the platform.

We worked with QUEST on multiple aspects of the Livelihood Connect platform including:
-    Research, experience design and facilitation for an innovation workshop
-    Synthesis of insights from the field and workshop to create an innovation workbook for field practitioners
-    Setting up the content structure and technology architecture for the knowledge sharing web platform
-    Branding and identity

Stills from the Innovation Workshop

User Personas used to facilitate ideation

Video from the Workshop

The workbook that was developed synthesized challenges into eight vital areas of intervention for vocational training institutes.
Within each of these areas more specific challenges along with some sample actions and solutions were detailed out. The intent of the workbook is to seed discussion and provide a framework for thoughts, experiments and reflections.

The portal is currently being developed for the stage-one launch. This includes setting up the content structure as well as branding and technology back-end. We are also helping build a road-map and an interaction plan for the platform.

The various manifests of the platform are not stand-alone interventions but a combination of multiple processes that aim to enable and inspire a diverse group of practitioners, policy-makers, program implementers, innovators and donors to connect with the vital group of young people in India today who could become valuable assets for future growth and development of the country.

Interaction Storyboards for Livelihood Connect Portal

Our role was to design a system level framework which would lay out the different interactions that the product would facilitate between these stakeholders – the eventual aim being to make education more accessible to students in remote areas who are removed from mainstream education centers. This framework would become the basis of developing top level features of the web service in order for technology development to start.

User research was carried out in a small town in central India where a pilot program supported by Cisco was being run by student entrepreneurs. Ethnographic research was the key tool to understand user realities and bring that understanding to bear on product development. The system was designed to leverage social networks and user generated content over time.

Storyboards were developed to demonstrate possible journeys of the product in use. These scenarios covered the entire spectrum of short, medium and long term manifestations of the product.

The concept presentation played a crucial role in aligning different Cisco offices globally and mobilizing internal support across for product development to start. The project is currently in the technology development phase.

As part of the Ripple Effect project in India, IDEO identified 5 organizations working in the domain of safe water and provided them incubation support in the areas of business and design to develop solutions such as delivery services and large-scale community water storage systems.

Quicksand was approached to document the journey of these five organizations, spread over different corners of the country, as they went about prototyping and deploying their solutions. The film based documentation became an important medium for IDEO & Acumen Fund to demonstrate the value of design thinking in driving issues pertaining to social development and impact.

The film is now in public domain and can be viewed here:

Spectranet is one of India’s first and largest broadband providers with services ranging from corporate and retail internet, cable TV solutions and Value Added Services.

Spectranet was launching a unique wireless internet service across India and wanted a rich understanding of who the users for this service would be, their internet and mobile usage patterns and their motivations for using this service. They also wanted to build a user-centered website that would be a key piece of their marketing strategy.

Spectranet engaged Quicksand in a user research + web design project for the website for the wireless broadband line of business. The project was executed over 3 months from research to website go-live and consisted of the following phases:

1. User Research: We segmented internet users into 8 archetypes based on their”

a) Intensity Of Internet Access : How much they used internet

b) Variety Of Internet Usage : How diverse was their internet use patterns (only Email on one end and Email + Torrents + MMOPRG + Social Media on the other)

c) Mobility Of Internet Usage : Were they always connected and logged online through their office / at home / while travelling / over phone or did they just have one access location.

Out of these 8 personas, we selected 6 that fit Spectranet’s core target group and identified representative users for each of these 6 archetypes. We then visited these users in their natural environment and had extended discussions with them around their internet usage, their device ecosystems, their perceptions on brands, their latent needs and their decision making process when choosing a broadband service provider.

2. Synthesized User Needs: Based on this research, we presented insights to Spectranet along dimensions such as internet usage, usage on the go, device ecosystems etc. Also we recommended certain types of tariff plans to maximize uptake.

3. Prototypes: We created high-fidelity wire-frames for the website based on our user research and the information needs of the users. With the technology back-end and the provisioning systems for this wireless internet service still under development,  the project presented an opportunity to influence & introduce features that could be incorporated in the service. The design process therefore ended up being highly iterative and participative.

4. Visual Design: Our design team, working with the brand brief that had been newly developed at Spectranet, created the visual design for the website.

Explore Rural India is a project jointly funded and managed by Ministry of Tourism of the Indian Government & the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). It is an imaginative and effective project that seeks to promote rural development through the twin means of Sustainable, Rural Tourism and indigenous crafts based Livelihoods promotion.

30+ villages across India were selected on the basis of their crafts and also scenic beauty. At each of these villages, village homestays & craft interpretation centers were created and residents received training in hospitality.

As the next step, UNDP wanted to use design thinking and brand building to create a superior experience for tourists (and craft buyers) coming into these villages. Quicksand was commissioned at the consultant to design and host a day long workshop for artisans from over 20 of the Explore Rural India villages which would introduce these artisans to

• The urban consumer’s situation & psyche and the role that crafts plays within their purchase patterns
• From this understanding, explore how they could create new, innovative products with functional (and not only aesthetic) value to urban & international consumers
• Understand the benefits and approach to branding their crafts in order to enable higher pricing and margins on their crafts

Quicksand prepared for the workshop through a week-long immersion into the retailing of crafts in New Delhi. A team of design researchers + brand specialists visited craft retail hubs such as the Cottage Industries Emporium & Emporiums of different states in India. Rich media documentation of these outlets allowed us to understand both

• Product innovation patterns within handicrafts: we evidenced several instances where products of urban household consumption had been created using
• How branding was being used to add both a narrative (crucial to craft retail) and perceived value

Based on this research, we designed a day long workshop which comprised of a presentation and several co-design activities with the participants such as creating a brand for their products, a market immersion comprising of these artisans visiting several of these craft retail outlets and understanding how their products were being sold in urban areas.

Key deliverables from the workshop to UNDP were a book that laid out principles for using design more effectively to promote crafts under the Explore Rural India program and also a film about the whole exercise. Click here to download a copy of the workbook.

The Vatika Group is a large business house in North India with diversified interests that range from residential, commercial and retail real estate to business centers, hospitality (hotels & restaurants) and education.

The top management of Vatika wanted to completely re-examine what their corporate website should be and how it should, most effectively, cater to the needs of the various stakeholders in the ecosystem. These stakeholders mapped against various internal departments were:

• For Real Estate
  • End users for residential real estate
  • Banks that sanction housing loans
  • Real estate brokerage firms,
  • Teams at retail chains responsible for identifying locations for expansion
  • Facilities management teams at corporate clients responsible for selecting
  • Organizations looking to hire Vatika’s Facilities Management Services for their premises

• For Hospitality
  • Potential guests to their hotels
  • Visitors to their restaurants

• Education
  • Parents of prospective students
  • People in the education fraternity

Vatika engaged Quicksand in a user-centered web design project for their corporate website. The project lasted about 3 months from research to website go-live and consisted of the following phases:

1. User Research: In discussions with Vatika’s top management, we identified a comprehensive set of stakeholders , within and outside of Vatika, who needed to be part of the user research. These included end users of residential real estate, people within the Vatika sales, marketing & finance teams, people at corporate houses who were clients of Vatika’s office space, people who were visitors to hotels and restaurants.

We visited these different stakeholders and had extensive conversations on their interactions with a real estate website, the jobs they needed to get done and brainstormed features on the website that could help them get those jobs done more effectively.

2. Synthesized User Needs: We synthesized user needs into proposed features and had an immersive workshop with the entire top management of Vatika and heads of different functions. We presented our research and also the feature set abstracted from those user needs. At the end of this discussion, we’d created a features roadmap for the corporate website.

3. Prototypes: We created high-fidelity wireframes bases on the features roadmap and then finalized those in workshops with the Vatika team.

4. Brand Definition: We facilitated 2 workshops with Vatika management and key people in which we arrived at a visual understanding of what the Vatika brand represented. The participants were primed with several images / cards / websites and asked to respond whether and how that image represented the Vatika brand. We distilled the brand into a few key adjectives that were taken as key inputs into the visual design.

5. Visual Design: Our design team created the visual design for the website based on the brand definition and guided the web development working closely with the technology team at Vatika.

Quicksand was brought in by the QUEST Alliance to do a mid-project case study to communicate the idea and vision of this unique project to other players in the education sector as well as to possible future funders. The idea was also to summarise the process of design & implementation, as well as document some of the challenges, to provide inspiration to other organisations that might want to replicate this project in other locations. We did a detailed expectations discussion with all the involved organisations and understood their separate roles and vision for the project. We then went on field visits to the various video units, observed sessions in classrooms, held discussions with producers, trainers, teachers & students; all this was then distilled into a narrative cum illustrative document (download pdf – 4.1mb, 16 spreads)

Quicksand has been working with IDEO since early 2006, managing and facilitating design research for them in India. Services rendered include:

• research planning & design
• ethnographic research
• cultural guiding
• rich media documentation
• data synthesis

Research formats range from shadowing sessions to fly-on-the-wall observations, diads, contextual inquiries, group sessions and usually involve a combined IDEO-Quicksand team in-field. The domains of intervention have cut across products and services in sectors such as internet, mobile and telecommunications.

(project details with-held as falling under an NDA)