Solidoodle is a 3D Printer manufacturer in the heart of Brooklyn, the company is on a mission to bring affordable, reliable, and user-friendly 3D printers to every home in America.
Role: Lead UX/UI Designer / Research / Testing / Overseeing Implementation / Advising CEO on Printer Design & Production Materials / Rebranding & Copywriting
Figuring out one of the most complex challenges of the connected consumer electronic product, is how do you make sure the user journey is somewhat seamless between the physical device that a user never used before, and digital world.
So how do you design for a product you never even heard about before?
Here’s how; on my second week on the job, I went down to the production line, asked for a fully assembled and ready to go Sd 4 Printer (shown above), I grabbed some tools and I took it apart, completely disassembled the printer and as I was putting the printer back together, I was learning every single part, every piece and talking to the production line manager and some staff to hear what they have to say about the product, its quality and how they think it might be improved.
By the time I finished building the printer back, I knew how to level the print bad, differences in print-bed volumes, how the extruder works, the axes it travels on, which parts are the weakest ones and what kind of technical issues a customer may experience and how typically the technicians are addressing such issues either over the phone or having the printer shipped to us for inspection and warranty service.
OBJECTIVE:
The vision was to build a user friendly printer and build an entire eco-system of seamless integrations and communication between the physical device that were to be either WiFi or BLE connected, online file-sharing community that is being driven by both the company’s 3D model designers, and the public individual contributors, and the softer software that operates the printer.
Research & Discovery
User Research
Interviewed 10 people, across all genders, as the general consumer of the product based on the sales data in the company was around the ages of 25-35, thats was the exact age groups I decided to concentrate on.
Community
The makers and hobbyist communities are fairly vocal about their products, projects, pain points and recommendations, and so I’ve spent weeks going through forums, different groups, etc. to identify and collect as much data as I could find trending complaints, requests, and suggestions.
Market Research
Competitive analysis was done together with our marketing team to have a broader view into our competition, not only on the level of their functionality and features, but also how to they approach user experience and consumer satisfaction.
CURRENT BEHAVIOR:
Users would use one software for modeling, another software for converting the model into a printable file and in many cases another software to print. Essentially users had to learn 3 different tools/applications to print something…
Image source: Google Image Search
Identified User Problems
Annoyance & Frustration
User found extremely frustrating that in order to print anything they had to learn 2-3 different tools, such as 3DMax or alike to model something, another tool convert the file into a 3D printer compatible and then use another tool like Repetier slice the model, manage the printers settings and print.
Hight Complexity
Operating a 3D Printer is not as simple as operating a consumer inkjet printer one can buy at BestBuy, in order to print anything the printer need to be adjusted, calibrated, and there is a lack of available resources and educational materials, lead to low customer satisfaction, user frustration and product returns.
As a result of user interviews, user testing, research and analysis, the entire approach to the connected-device was changed, and all previous assumptions and believes of how the users are interacting with our printers were refined and updated to reflect our findings.
In order to achieve the goals we set out to achieve, we had to not only change our assumptions, but also make a serious change in our product development lifecycle.
Based on the new process, we have invalidated the previous assumptions on how the online store, file-sharing and devices should interact, and learned that a proper eco-system had to be developed, however, I have proven my initial assumptions that users don't want to spend time nor learn complex software, all they need is a one unified platform where they can shop, download, modify and print.
Based on the research results we gathered and by continues engagement with the user community, we were able to better understand how the end-user should be experiencing the product, and not only on the level of just using it, but a whole experience of a user journey that begins at our online store, shipping, what the user experiences when they receive and open the box, connecting, first time using, engaging with the community, and much more…
Rebranding
In collaboration with the CEO and Marketing Manager, we completely reinvented the companies color palette, messaging and slogans, creating a more colorful palette with diagonal structures in the background and assets visuals together with a new slogan I created Think it. Make it. we were able to run a very successful digital campaign raising over $600,000 in pre-sales within just 3 months.
Unified Experience
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Full Journey Experience
In order to improve the customer experience, I had to look at the entire journey from a birds eye view and then zoom into the smallest details, which helped me redesign every step in the journey, from redesign of the online store, ordering, shipping, receiving the product, unboxing, etc. by redesigning each part to cohesively flow as a single continues experience, which I have accomplished by redesigning the packaging as well as printed starter guide, user manual, and more
Simplified Shopping
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Device & Cloud Relationship
I created a multi-way communication between all of our digital assets and the printer, in such a way that regardless where the user would start their journey in experiencing the new product, they would be able to have access to online resources for print models by feeding this data directly into our desktop software, controlling the printer was available by either interacting with printer interface itself or the software, in addition the user was able to send to print directly from our online resource community website Solidoodles
Enhanced Community
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
