How would you design a washing machine for the millennials?

Millennials, today, can be between 23-38 years old. I'm assuming that this washing machine is for residential purposes and not used commercially. The overarching goal for this product to address pain points around this user group and leverage technology to close the gaps. 

Painpoints with the current washing machines in the market. I'd look at the customer journey of washing and drying clothes to come up with a comprehensive set of pain points

Put your clothes in-> Choose a washing option -> Take clothes out -> Select drying option -> Remove from the dryer

Put your clothes in

• Never know the difference in S/M/L size loads
•  Not sure about compatibility of different clothes
• Uncertainty about types of clothes that can and cannot be washed
• Not sure how much detergent to use

• Too many options
• Pretty manual interface
• No confirmation about the selected option

• No idea how clean the clothes are. Do any of them need a second wash?
• Manual efforts from washing to drying
• Busy with other things and forget that they have put the clothes in the washing machine

• Same pain points as selecting washing options

• Manual efforts to remove lint
• Still, need a press

• Uncertainty about certain types of clothes
• Too many options for washing and drying
• Manual efforts to put/remove clothes
• Need a press

• Auto-detect types of clothes. Reject any incompatible ones
• Recommend the best option for clothes
• Display % cleaned after wash
• Auto-press

 

As a PM, we are in an organization which wants us to design a washing machine which caters to the millenial segment.

Here we need to define what a washing machine is and who millenials are. Then we need to understand what are the delighters and pain points for the persona.

Washing machine: A machine which washes, dries clothes. It has certain ways to wash clothes depending on the size, weight, type and timers to switch on and off.

Millenials: Young adults generally working 9 to 5 jobs, usually either recently married or single. They usually own smartphones, well versed in technology, have short attention span, are attracted by options which conserve energy (or are efficient), etc.

Pain points: Hate to segregate clothes based on types, size, whites(non whites), etc. Do not like finding themselves out of detergents. Do not appreciate lint on clothes. Are doing multiple things so can forget taking clothes out of the dryer.

Now let us identify the delighters for millenials and spell out features

1.No need to segregate: Machine can have another compartment where all dirty clothes are thrown and machine has a smart recognizer which can recognize and wash clothes based on weight, sensitivity, color, etc.

2. Smart detergent ordering mechanism: Machines could have detrgent intake compartment which can take a lot of detergent and use it optimally in each wash. Once it is close to finish, you get a reminder on your phone to reorder it. Another great step is if you set the notification to auto reorder, your detergents are automatically reordered from an online store.

3. Remove lint: Machines can automatically clean themselves to remove lint after few washes.

4. Auto ironing: Lot of millenials are multi taskers and have short attention span. In this regard, we need final solution once we put our clothes for washing. Hence, after drying, there can a mechanism to auto iron the clothes. There could be press which can identify the sensitivity of the cloth and press it with steam generated from wasted waster (after filtering) from washing. This will be efficient and save time.

Clarifying questions: 

1)  Any specific geography to consider? 

2) Millenials mean people in age range 20-30 now? 

3) Any business goal to consider? 

4) Is this for home? school? public place? hotel? 

5) Any other users in the family to be considered? 

Metrics to chase:  Customer experience 

User groups

1) Millenials living in home  ( couples or singles) 

2)  Millenials living together in a hostel or dorm (common washing machine) 

User persona: Millenials living in home ( individual washing machine) 

1) Tech savvy 

2) Price sensitive maybe 

3) Influnced by reviews 

4) A little short on time. Expect convenience. 

Pain points with existing machines: 

1)  Occupy large space. Movement is not easy. Millenials tend to change places frequently. 

2) Take long time to clean. You have to preplan for your next wear. 

3) Does not iron clothes.

4) Energy and water inefficient 

5) Accumulate clothes and then wash. Batching - not realtime.

Pain point to build a feature on :  Takes long time to clean. 

Solution. 

1)  Realtime washing plus ironing machine that sits somewhere in a corner in the bathroom. Clothes get cleaned by nano technology and iron by robotic mini machines

2) Air sprays which cleans clothes instantaneously