Mouthwash (large company

The project, like I said, was myself and this more senior designer and he was the project leader. The two of us were responsible for all of the human factors research, but mostly me, because actually what wound up happening was we had a really tight schedule on this one and we were having to do all the research over the holidays and he was on vacation, so I would up going to a number of interviews by myself and trying to hold the camera and take pictures and conduct the interview all in one. Then come back and share that with him, but he wasn't around. It's not as strong of a process if it's just one person, I think, especially for me because I like to bounce off of other people and talk with other people a lot. [2775],[2794],[2796],[2795],[2793],[2776]
Then come back and share that with him, but he wasn't around. It's not as strong of a process if it's just one person, I think, especially for me because I like to bounce off of other people and talk with other people a lot. [2777]
He and I had a lot of fun when we were able to do it together because it was such a goofy topic and especially the in-the-shower thing. There were some really funny conversations with people. It was just always lacking and when we got to the design phase, he basically took everything and designed stuff and I felt more like I was just supporting him and doing what he asked me to do, rather than being this two-person collaborative effort. [2797],[2799],[2798],[2778]
The other contributing factor was that towards the end of this process, the client company underwent a shift and they actually got sold. It was this huge consumer... I don't know what they're classified as, but consumer goods company that was sold to another huge company [2800]
It basically felt like we gave them this presentation at the end and they put it on a shelf somewhere and were like great, okay, so now let's start over again. That was disappointing too. [2780],[2801]
The other contributing factor was that towards the end of this process, the client company underwent a shift and they actually got sold. It was this huge consumer... I don't know what they're classified as, but consumer goods company that was sold to another huge company. I think because the employees knew this was coming, a lot of them left, so a lot of our team at the client side left. By the time we got to the final presentation, it was an entirely different team. The people that we were trying to share our end deliverable with hadn't been there for any of the earlier stuff, which I'm sure you've heard from people here, that's a big part of our job is holding their hand and bringing them through the whole process and the research and findings so that hopefully, they buy into everything at the end. [2779]
Again, we had two main contacts and both of them left by then end. They had a more extended team of maybe eight or so people. As far as who were the decision makers there, I would say it was those two people. [2781]
It changed a little bit because of this pet issue that they had about the in-shower thing. I think, initially, when conversations started with them, before this project came to be, it was really design something for using mouthwash in the shower. I think we were able to broaden it to say no really what are you trying to get at? Get to the root of what they were looking for was to increase consumption and maybe one way was to examine that. We were able to take the focus off of that one product idea and look more at the problem and have that be one element of what we looked at. That was all determined before the project started, too. That was crafted by our practice, BD people. Within the project, I don't know that it changed all that much. [2782]
Time was an issue on it because we were two people trying to do three people's work over the holidays, which is tricky. [2783]
Time was an issue on it because we were two people trying to do three people's work over the holidays, which is tricky. But I don't think budget was a problem because we had budgeted for a whole nother person by we definitely were short on time. [2803],[2802],[2784]
What we ultimately gave them... we had found...we mixed up our research a little bit in that before we went out and talked to people we made a little pilot study to get at some of this in-shower use thing. We made three different types of shower possibilities and gave them to people and gave them a photo journal and had them go through using them for a week and then we went and interviewed them. That was part of our research. One of the things that we had given them that we had just found at a container store, people were using in all different ways that we hadn't even intended. That has really just been this rough, just get something out there in two day, we just designed stuff to send out to them. That turned into being...what we finally delivered wasn't really that far from this thing that we had found at the container store. A lot of the stuff that we got about adaptability and different ways to hang it and different times that people would want to use came through that product. [2785]
We really liked our client contact on that one. She did get it and she would talk the talk and understand the user research and understand that the company was not real risk-taking and she was trying to push them to be more so and she understood that they're market research techniques didn't always give the right results that they wanted. It was unfortunate to lose her. It lost its seam when she left. It was really good with her. [2786]
At the same time, because it was just the two of us, I was responsible for a lot of elements of the final presentation that I might not otherwise have been. That was kind of fun. [2788]
On the outset, we had a lot of fun doing all the crazy research was a blast. Towards the end it got kind of stressful because he was very dominant and shooting down some of my ideas so I lost a little bit of momentum by the end. [2787]
On the outset, we had a lot of fun doing all the crazy research was a blast. Towards the end it got kind of stressful because he was very dominant and shooting down some of my ideas so I lost a little bit of momentum by the end. At the same time, because it was just the two of us, I was responsible for a lot of elements of the final presentation that I might not otherwise have been. That was kind of fun. [2804],[2805]
Yeah because I didn't feel like I really contributed to the designs at the end. It was more like he was like let me show you what I did today. I'd be like cool, what about that? He'd be like no. [2789],[2806]
A little bit of time. We were really crunching to get through as much as we could before we lost these two people. Again, that was through the holidays and stuff, which made it tricky. [2790]
Reference Tags
[2775] Communicating ideas across domains,[2794] Lack of resources,[2796] Listening disposition,[2795] Resilience,[2793] Solitude disposition when stuck,[2776] Planning fallacy,[2777] Absence of diverse skill backgrounds,[2797] Lack of resources,[2799] Solitude disposition when stuck,[2798] Woman blaming man,[2778] Lack of challenging work,[2800] Internal changes/challenges,[2780] Peak-end rule,[2801] Premature idea evaluation,[2779] Internal changes/challenges,[2781] Vague roles,[2782] Vague goals,[2783] Planning fallacy,[2803] Planning fallacy,[2802] Unbalanced workload pressure,[2784] Unbalanced workload pressure,[2785] Win-win conflict about ideas,[2786] Decisive leadership,[2788] Balance of challenging work,[2787] Dismissive,[2804] Forceful conflict about ideas,[2805] Reactance,[2789] Dismissive,[2806] Forceful conflict about ideas,[2790] Planning fallacy