Creative Brief
Project Details
Date: January 20, 2022
Company Name: HealthChoice Promotions, Inc.
Prepared by: Jarrett Bregler Phone: (603) 882-6275
Email: jarrett.bregler@snhu.edu
Project name: Dehumidifier Redesign
Design Lead: Jarrett Bregler Business Lead: Jarrett Bregler
Product Manager: Jarrett Bregler
Company Background
Founded in 2020, HealthChoice Promotions, Inc. is a healthcare technology company that identifies gaps in the product market with products intended to improve the health and wellness of users. It also engages in consultation services with product designers to strategize how to improve the user experience for users with physical and cognitive disabilities.
Project Concept
The project concept entails a redesign of a dehumidifier with a focus on increasing its capacity to address the multiple needs of users with chronic health conditions. The value of the project is to enhance the responsiveness of the product to better accommodate users by addressing deficiencies that limit its use and don’t fulfill users’ needs. Essentially, the intent is to create a more contemporary version of the product that improves air quality and supports the wellness objectives of users with allergies and serious respiratory ailments.
Business Objectives
The business objective is to recreate a common household item and further its capacity of usefulness to be purchased as a product aid for health improvement and sustainability for individuals with compromised health conditions. In order to increase commerce and customer engagement, a further business objective entails partaking in promotional partnerships with healthcare organizations that will endorse the merits of the redesign and its attained objectives in improving the experience of use, enhancing the quality of air within the room and location, and augmenting health support for those users dependent upon it for their health and well-being.
The product objective is to offer a diversity of settings to accommodate the multiple temperature requirements to effectively address these health ailments. It is also to improve the user experience by designing a user interface that encompasses usability heuristics that are presently lacking. Further, it is to assist individuals with disabilities who often contend with these ailments to be able to access it independently to support their healthcare needs.
User Benefits
There are a plethora of user benefits.
- The overriding benefit is its ability to remove more moisture from the air in quicker intervals than existing models on the market.
- It removes humidity faster than existing models on the market.
- It improves the overall air circulation within the room resulting in an outcome of improved comfort for the user.
- It supports improved respiratory function.
- With updated technology, it will cover more square footage to accommodate the size and design of more contemporary homes.
- The redesign’s health improvement outcomes will be predominantly correlated with addressing a diversity of allergy needs, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), lung cancer, and the labored breathing of users afflicted with heart disease.
- The redesign will diversify the user experience with more options relative to the differing needs of individuals with these conditions and ensure the ability to ease the effort of breathing in and out on the lungs. It will also impart human-centered design and be user-friendly for people and older adults with disabilities.
User Considerations
- Digitized buttons operated by a Touchscreen Interface
- A short cut setting option as a My User Profile in which all user settings for typical use are initiated at the touch of one button
- Ability to adjust temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius that furthers its universality and global user approach
- Customizability with temperature settings in increments of 5 degrees Fahrenheit or 2.75 degrees Celsius Settings for desired humidity range in increments of five percent
- Fan speed control with ten total available power settings enabling the user to control air circulation
- Current humidity range level display to alert the user to make needed adjustments for their health requirements
- For users with sensory issues, four noise control settings from high to low to ensure user comfort
Audience
The primary audience for the product is people living with chronic health conditions affiliated with respiratory hinderances.
The secondary audience is any user that wants to improve the air quality in their home by reducing moisture and humidity. Essentially, those with a focus on the benefits of household use.
Most products offer limited settings and accommodations to these users and this product redesign will eradicate the current one-size-fits all approach that exists with most present-day units. While there are some commonalities of symptoms suffered by users with these conditions, there are needs unique to the specific illnesses and individuals contending with them that have not been factored into contemporary designs but will be reflected within this redesign. Most of these conditions are across gender and the age spectrum so the design focus entails young children to older adults. With COPD, lung cancer, and heart disease, the demographic largely includes adults middle aged to elderly from 40 years of age to 70.
Schedule
Start Date: February 20th, 2022
End Date: April 17th, 2022
Assumptions and Research
The characteristics of the product that must exist include a digital interface, a variety of temperature settings, humidity settings, a mold control removal setting, auditory functions for visually impaired users, noise control levels for individuals with sensory issues such as autism, error prevention capacities, and shortcut settings for chronic users for flexibility and efficiency of use. Sensory analysis will also include users with eye sensitivities that need to be able to adjust product lighting. With regards to avoiding assumptions, usability analysis and research required for the redesign includes more medical exploration to align user settings with healthcare outcomes. It will also comprise of the collection of disability data to improve usage capacities with a variety of individuals on the disability spectrum, both physical and cognitive.
Competitive Landscape
| Whirlpool | Maytag | Frigidaire | Honeywell | |
| Features | ||||
| Moisture Reduction | 50 Pints Per Day | 40 Pints Per Day | 45 Pints Per Day | 40 Pints Per Day |
| Humidity Reduction | Relative Humidity (RH) Level – 46 Pints | Relative Humidity (RH) Level – 40 Pints | Relative Humidity (RH) Level – 45 Pints | Relative Humidity (RH) Level – 40 Pints |
| Air Quality: Dust Mite Removal | 30% Per Day | 20% Per Day | 25% Per Day | 20% Per Day |
| Temperature Range | 4 Settings | 3 Settings | 4 Settings | 3 Settings |