Researching consumer trends and preparing a product launch
Product: The Linus® Smart Lock is an add-on module you put on your existing lock to make it “smart”. Launch on the Scandinavian market in 2021.
Brief: Research behavioral change, and prediction, regarding purchase attitudes in post-Covid-19, i.e. the new normal, in consumers concerning online or on-site buying.
Taking the above into consideration, how to best introduce Yale Linus to the Scandinavian market?
Role: In a team of six, my role was to oversee the research efforts and conceptualizing the desktop experience.
Time frame: two weeks.
Result: Consumer insights and a web-based concept for launching Yale Linus.
The Yale Linus in terra black
Website and mobile app audit. We took a look into the different potential touchpoints in a user’s journey. There are, for example, about eight different Yale apps and it is difficult to know which one, or ones, is to be used in conjunction with Linus.
From my survey, answered by 110 respondents, we could see that:
We conducted seven interviews with consumers as well as three interviews with lock store and hardware store personnel.
“I did some research online, then I went to Bauhaus and asked some questions before making my purchase”
A quote from one of the interviewees, which summarizes a common purchase behavior.
Virtual sticky notes in preparation for user interviews.
From speaking with potential customers we learned that:
From here we could map out customer journeys for both purchases made online as well as in physical stores. We saw a dip during the purchase phase and identified two major issues when conducting a purchase online:
We compiled a behavior group, identifying wants, needs and hinders.
These seemed to be the most pressing concerns:
Trust
Safety
Functionality
Aesthetics
We conducted two design studios, one for assurance regarding safety and compatibility, one for esthetics and function. For these, we focused on the most central of our design questions - How might we make our prospective customers assured and confident when thinking of buying an electronic lock?
One of the solutions we contemplated was having an avatar of sorts on a website, answering questions, or talking about the product to address the missing experience of an expert to talk to online. We scrapped the idea after testing though, since we concluded that would introduce a series of risks, like linguistic barriers, personality mismatch and limited AI.
The solution we proposed was something that would try and fulfill the needs of the visitor.
While others on the team wireframed a mobile experience that lets the user check compatibility with their door and lock as well as place and examine Linus using AR, I concentrated on designing a website for desktop.
Coming back to our insights, I put the order of contents on the page correlated with the value of the information:
A rough animation I put together in After Effects to illustrate an animate on scroll concept.