Yarn is a set of laundry tools that is re-imagining the humane laundry experience.

Sector

User Experience Design,
UI Design, ID Concept

Year & Duration

2022; 14 weeks

Tools

Figma; ProtoPie; Arduino;
Adobe Ae/Pr/Ps; Fushion 360;

Team

Olilo Ye (Research; Ideation; Testing; UX/UI Design; Industrial Design)
Brenna Liu (Research; Ideation; CMF Design; Industrial Design)

Our Vision

We believe that every moment of life is worth enjoying. People shouldn't be distracted or stuck by a cumbersome experience. We want to set everyone free by designing a new generation of laundry systems to make the laundry process effortless and worry-free.

Background

The activity around washing may sound simple but it’s actually quite complicated.

The clothes themself have blocks of symbols communicating how they need to be treated. That is reflected by different sets of completed icons and symbols on the surface of the machine.

In addition to icons and symbols there is a large amount of modes on the washing machine, most of which will not be used by the user during the laundry. All of these designs are intended to make laundry easier and more efficient, but they don't work as well as they should. Therefore, we designed yarn to challenge this situation.

Jump to the final design

Finding problems in current laundry experience

In this phase, we collected secondary data on user opinions, behaviors, and the market.
Also identified what we want to learn from the users.

We interviewed 5 target users to learn their laundry habits, usage of laundry modes and functions, perception of fabrics, usage of laundry supplies, laundry sorting habit, laundry expectation, attitude and handling of stains, and trust in laundry tools.

Insights

01

Users have a very high learning cost for various washing modes. This has increased the user's guessing time and uncertainty in the laundry process.

02

Users have limited trust in washing machines, especially when it comes to dealing with stains. The more stains on clothes, the less trust users have.

03

The wash label system does not effectively communicate to the user how the clothes should be washed, while ignoring the information the user really wants to know(Color Bleeding / Fading Level).

There are numerous laundry modes on the washing machine but it is poorly utilized.

> 78%

men always use the same wash program and ignoring the washing instructions.

≈ 49%

women use three or less wash program.

Our Study Shows:

“There is no explanation of what these modes mean, and I rely on my guesses and experiences when I use them. In general, to reduce the risk, I only use modes that I’m already familiar with.

-Interviewed Users

Insights

01

Users have a very high learning cost for various washing modes. This has increased the user's guessing time and uncertainty in the laundry process.

02

Users have limited trust in washing machines, especially when it comes to dealing with stains. The more stains on clothes, the less trust users have.

03

The wash label system does not effectively communicate to the user how the clothes should be washed, while ignoring the information the user really wants to know(Color Bleeding / Fading Level).

User Mental Model:

The main role of a washing machine is to deal with everyday dust; users do not have confidence in the machine to handle details or stubborn stains.

Insights

01

Users have a very high learning cost for various washing modes. This has increased the user's guessing time and uncertainty in the laundry process.

02

Users have limited trust in washing machines, especially when it comes to dealing with stains. The more stains on clothes, the less trust users have.

03

The wash label system does not effectively communicate to the user how the clothes should be washed, while ignoring the information the user really wants to know(Color Bleeding / Fading Level).

The current washing label system is difficult to understand and few people using it.

< 15%

of the people can identify washing signs correctly.

1

/ 3

women use three or less wash program.

The wash label and the washer interface are using different languages to communicate, making it confusing for the user to correlate with each other.

“When I wash a new cloth, I hand wash it to make sure it doesn't lose color and damage other clothes.”

-Interviewed Users

The laundry label does not provide the information that users are most concerned about - Color Bleeding / Fading Situation.

Persona

With the insight we got from previous research, we are gradually specifying our user personas. We want to reach more users by designing for users with special washing needs or scenarios. Therefore we have chosen these two personas, Henry and Cora, also indicate two main user groups for our system: people who wash precious or premium clothes and people who wash a large amount of clothes.

Primary
Persona

Secondary
Persona

Henry Carson

Freelance Photographer

Laundry Type

Middle-premium Cloth

“It takes efforts to taking care of clothes.”

He sees clothes as a representation of his self-identity, which drives him to buy more middle-premium clothes. They are not cost-effective for dry cleaning, but the washing machine may destroy them.This made him cherish these clothes and wear them only when it‘s important.

Goals

-“Less Effort, Better Result.”
-Maintain the cloth in  it’s highest performance.
-No harm to clothes & wash out dirt.

Cora Lucas

HR Director

Laundry Type

Large amount of baby/Kids Clothes

“Hope my children to be able to wash their own clothes.”

She always chooses fabrics that are easy to clean, don't lose color, and don't require extra care for her kids, which can make her laundry easier. Kids put on a fashion show every day, which leads to mountains of clothes to clean every week. Sometimes mistakes inevitably happen in the process. She made decent guesses based on all the knowledge and information she had, but choosing a laundry mode was still confusing.

Goals

-Convenient.
-Use and leave interaction.
-Serves as an assistant in the laundry workflow.

Laundry Journey Analysis

The activity around washing may sound simple, but it’s actually quite complicated. Getting it right requires certain skills and knowledge about stains, fabrics, laundry solutions, laundry settings, and so much more.

Laundry may sound simple, but it’s actually quite complicated.
How might we make laundry as easy as it sounds?

In order to reach our goal, we have broken down the bigger problem into multiple smaller How Might We questions in the current user journey.

Ideation around HMWs

The HMW problem has successfully expanded our perspective. Several rounds of brainstorming around these problems were conducted within our team.

Design Goal

01

Humanized way to communicate laundry preferences

02

Eliminate uncertainty and guessing in the laundry process

03

Building trust in washing machine's capability to handle stains

04

Minimize efforts for laundry categorization

Establishing Information Architecture

For the ideas belonging to the four design goals, we deconstructed them into detailed functional and informational elements. These elements were further built into a preliminary information architecture.

Prototyping, Testing, Iterating

During this phase, we conducted two rounds of usability testing with 10 users. With the help of participants' feedback, we iterated our prototype three times, from low-fidelity sketches to the final design.

The following pages are mainly showing part of the iteration on two key flows(Laundry Setting Flow & Stain First Aid Flow), if you want to learn iteration on all flows, please shoot me an email(zexi_ye@outlook.com).

Iteration Flow 1: Laundry Settings

Key Learning 1

Through usability testing we realized that because many new concepts were introduced in the new laundry system, users were not sure if they understood the meaning of these unfamiliar concepts correctly and were hesitant to make a selection.

Improvements

We added an onboarding process to give users an idea of the new concept before starting to use it. We also placed multiple icon buttons next to related functions so that users can get an explanation if they are unsure of their understanding.

Key Learning 2

The distinction between the 3 modes of laundry(Valet Laundry, Laundry Presets & Manual Mode) is not obvious enough for users to clearly feel the benefits and drawbacks.

Improvements

Adjust the interface of each mode according to their scenario of use.
- Valet Laundry: The user expects the laundry task to be transient posture(comes and goes), in which efficiency comes first.
- Laundry Presets: Users have the need to do laundry according to certain routine in their lives.
- Manual Mode: User have the need for taking total control of the washing machine.

The next gen laundry system that
enable the humane laundry experience.

RFID Laundry Label

The Keystone Product

Rewind to Insight 3

The current wash label system does not effectively communicating to the user how the clothes should be washed.

We redesigned the laundry label and made it the keystone of new laundry experience to challenge the status quo.

New Label.

For clarity.

For comfort.

For all clothes.

The new design covers basic washing information, making it easy to understand. At the same time, information about fabric color, fabric type, and fabric fading level is included in the RFID chip.

The new label is made of skin-friendly material, which can be attached to any position of the clothing and does not make people feel uncomfortable like traditional washing labels.

The new labels are not only in the form of tags to replace the traditional washing labels, but also in the form of buttons and stickers to allow users to upgrade the traditional labels more easily.

What changes have RFID Laundry Label brought to the laundry process?

Through the RFID chip inside the washing label, the clothes can actively communicate with the washing machine and the laundry basket.

Rewind to Insight 3

In our preliminary user research, we found that each person has their own preference for sorting clothes and believes this will cost a lot of efforts. So the task of sorting is rarely done during the daily dirty clothes drop-off, but rather when laundry needs to be done.

We want to minimize laundry categorization efforts in daily life, further build a new basket system that is effortless to maintain.

New Basket.

Worry-free

Effortless

After adjusting the layout of the basket, users can define the sorting rules for each area with the app. When the clothes approach, the basket will give hints based on the rule.

When sorting laundry, to get the hints (Sorting Hints Function), user can hover the clothes right above the basket and the corresponding area will be lighted up.
The basket will also light up red if any cloth is misclassified.

Rewind to Insight 1

Users have a very high learning cost for various washing modes. This has increased the user's guessing time and uncertainty in the laundry process.

We hope to free user from worrying about techniqual laundry spec by building a new washer with interaction that can let user to express their washing needs, wants and preferences in a humane way.

Credit to the benefits of RFID chip, all clothes info will automatically aggregated to the washing machine for the best results.

Laundry Detergent Storage

Besides the information from the RFID chip, the machine can store up to 5 types of laundry solutions.

Why laundry solution storage

Detergent Storage Refill & Replace

All 5 laundry solutions can be easily refilled or replaced, by operating the washing machine interface or the App interface.

3 Modes Only.

Valet Laundry

Presets laundry

Manual

With the cloth info from RFID Label and stored laundry solution, Valet Laundry will set everything for the user.

Why we created Valet Laundry?

3 Modes Only.

Valet Laundry

Presets laundry

Manual

Presets Laundry is the personalized setting that best suits users’ diverse scenarios.

Why we created Presets Laundry?

3 Modes Only.

Valet Laundry

Presets laundry

Manual

If the user has a need for total control of the laundry program, the manual mode will allow users to keep all laundry specs under control.
(Laundry Spec include: Temp, Spin, Soil...)

Why we created Manual Mode?
Rewind to Insights 2

Users have limited trust in washing machines, especially when it comes to dealing with stains. The more stains on clothes, the less trust users have.

We designed a set of stain treatment tools to increase the confidence of the user. Each time the tools are used, we ask for the basic information of the stain through the interface, so the user knows that washing machine is aware of this situation, and will be targeted to deal with it.

2 Stain Tools

To Regain Trust

To increase user confidence in the washing machine when dealing with stains and to change the user's existing understanding that “Cleaning up stains is extra work for it.”, we designed two stain removal tools (the stain ball and the stain wand) with the corresponding stain first aid flow.

Designed with efficiency in mind.

Design System

Yarn contains two design systems for the mobile side and the washing machine interface side. In this process, we pursued consistency in cross-device operation while taking into account the characteristics and usage scenarios of different devices.

Next Step

As we interact with real users, we are learning more and more about what they expect their laundry experience to be like, but the limited time frame has allowed us to implement only some of the key features, so next step we will:

1. Refine and iterate on some minor flows:

Continue to iterate and improve the features related to clothes sorting and improve the interface on the laundry basket.

2. Extend to more use cases

For example, designing models that can be operated even by children.

3. Statistic study on user test to validate this concept.

Turn the screen sideways for better experience.