Elevating Rubbermaid's Purchasing Experience
⚠️ Disclaimer:This is a project done as learning activity in my Master’s UX & Interaction Design Program at Jefferson University. I am not associated with the brand and this project is done for learning purpose.
🏠 About Rubbermaid
Rubbermaid is an American manufacturer and distributor of household items. They're a big household market player and are best known for producing food storage containers and trash cans. Additionally, they make sheds, step stools, closets and shelving, laundry baskets, bins, air fresheners, and other household items.
🏹 Process
Rubbermaid is an American manufacturer and distributor of household items. They're a big household market player and are best known for producing food storage containers and trash cans. Additionally, they make sheds, step stools, closets and shelving, laundry baskets, bins, air fresheners, and other household items.
🔬 Research & Findings
Rubbermaid has been selling its products traditionally and needs an online e-commerce shop. They have excellent performance in giants like Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc., but have yet to have an online store of their own.
🤔 Understanding the Problem
Rubbermaid has been selling its products traditionally and needs an online e-commerce shop. They have excellent performance in giants like Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc., but have yet to have an online store of their own.
The brand currently relies on one specific category, i.e., food containers. However, when we interviewed the users, we learned that they were more than happy to buy other products from Rubbermaid but had yet to know what Rubbermaid sold outside of food containers.
The products Rubbermaid sells revolve around more of what they want to sell rather than what the users need.
💡 The Solution
I am solving a specific use case where I am taking up a user trying to set up their apartment or any household category from scratch. However, this solution would still cater to users who have not decided what household items they need to organize their homes.
I designed an app for Rubbermaid to let users find the perfect match of home organizational products they need. The users would sign up, select categories, and swipe through cards. Each card would show the items in specific categories; ideally, each would have 30-45 cards. So the users would swipe right for the things they have or will have in their home and swipe left if not, while users would also have options to custom-add the items not shown in the card. When the user is done swiping, the app suggests a list of products they need to organize all the items in their home or a specific category.
🧪 Iterations & Testing
For the first round, I ran down the hall test with a couple of friends with my sketches. I realized that all items won't go in the same card swipes and had to introduce "categories" so that the users could minimize the swiping experience and choose to narrow their product search.
After a few more paper tests with the Rubbermaid users (that match the persona), I moved ahead with the UI and tested that with 7 more users. Some were the same, and I chose some new users to test the UI. I found out that the "Where am I?" state in the card swipes was confusing for the users, and I opted to choose the Instagram story style indicator for more relevancy.
🚀 The Product Track Forward
To make this product successful, card swiping should use machine learning to understand users' demographics and behavior. By doing so, we can predict users' household items and show the cards accordingly.