Product Ideation for Smart Home Device
Translating customer and market research to identify new product use cases for a large smart home device company.
Role
Market Research
User Research
Workshop Facilitation
Timeline
May - June 2022
Project
Client Project at Accenture SF Innovation Hub
Background
A consumer technology company hired Accenture’s Innovation team to organize a 2-day workshop to help their product teams generate new features and capabilities for their smart home device.
Approach
In a team of 3, I was responsible for synthesizing and delivering qualitative research to help the product team ground their ideation in user insights. I also facilitated a group of 6 people during the workshop.
Outcome
At the end of our workshop, the product team generated 250+ concept ideas that were narrowed down to 5 specific product features to add to their product development roadmap.
Background
A large consumer technology company hired Accenture’s Innovation team to organize a 2-day workshop to help their product teams generate new features and capabilities for their smart home device.
Our goal was to focus on two use cases: household coordination and meal prep.
Research & Synthesis
The client handed over 20+ research documents on smart home devices — covering a wide range of topics. My goal was to simplify the complexity by uncovering key themes and patterns.
I sifted through the material that revealed who the potential users were: what they valued, what they needed, and how they felt about technology in their homes. The result was a set of 4 clear customer profiles that turned fragmented research into organized insights.
Persona Development
After validating user profiles with the client, my goal was to build on the research to create detailed personas that inspired ideation.
These artifacts would be leveraged in the workshop to help ground participants in existing insights on customers - their daily journeys, pain points, and values around technology.
Through each step of the process, I worked with the lead user researcher on the client team to align on the ideation assets and exercises.
Guiding a diverse set of stakeholders on
concept generation
Workshop Facilitation
I led a 6-person group through a fast-paced ideation activity designed to generate bold, user-centered ideas for our personas.
Together, we sketched, clustered, and built on each other’s thinking, producing more than 50 ideas in an hour. From there, I guided the group to prioritize 2 concept cards that directly addressed our personas’ key pain points.
Some stakeholders were initially hesitant about the exercise, but by walking them through the purpose of ideation, how it connected to the research, and how these ideas would evolve into tangible features, I was able to build trust and bring everyone on board.
Translating concepts into a storyboard and service blueprint to understand the different touchpoints to enable the experience
Concept Storyboard
Later, I expanded expanded on one of the concept cards by creating a storyboard and service design blueprint.
These visual frameworks help me communicate and clarify complex concepts to different stakeholders, and serve as a tool to align on the desired experience and the data and technology needed to support a seamless user journey.
Outcome
Over 2 days, sticky notes iteratively became more detailed and nuanced as we grouped, prioritized, and assessed concepts against product frameworks.
At the end of the workshop, the team co-designed and aligned on 5 product features to include in their development roadmap.
