woong-jin coway countertop water purifier case study
Our team at Phloy were presented with an opportunity to develop a countertop water purifier for the NA market. Woong-jin Coway is the leader in South Korea in water filtration systems and water purification systems. This was the first UX research exercise I participated in, and it helped me to understand what user-centered design really meant.
1. research
Research for this project consisted of three distinct parts. Part one is the user study home visit session. Part two is the idea synthesis session, or design synthesis exercise. Part three is researching trends, forms, colors, materials, and finishes, among other things.
The home visit was mostly conducted to find out what a typical consumer might have in terms of drinking water systems in their homes. This consumer had Brita filter pitchers, kettles, and other products that the Coway countertop purifier might be able to solve. After this home study we went back to the office in order to synthesize our observations and findings.
We took our raw notes from the home visit study and created post-its of our data in four different categories: What we saw, what we heard, what we thought, and product ideas. We brought the most similar post-its into five distinct themes. These were later incorporated into our research report. It’s extremely beneficial to use research data to derive key insights for product development. Without this research, designers are left to guess the desires of the consumer.
Our research concluded with studies done of kitchen trends, colors, materials, finishes, and design language inspirations.
2. development
We took our personas and design inspiration themes and started to build out concept drawings. The research led to the insights which led to the three final themes which finally led to the three final concepts.
3. final renderings and presentation
The final three designs were presented to Woong-jin Coway for final assessment and development.
