Laundrobot App

My Role

Research
UX Design
Prototype Development
UI Design (shared with Tomoki Arakawa)
Customer Journey
Wireframes
User testing
Web Design

Overview:

The trend of apps that assist with the laundry is relatively new but is continuing to grow, as people are trying to solve the problem of bad user experience when doing laundry at a public laundry room.

Problem: Doing laundry at the apartment complex laundry room is a hassle. User has to get quarters, potentially make multiple trips in hope of finding an available washer/dryer, run the risk of their laundry being handled by someone else if the user is late or forgets to take it out.

Solution: A mobile app called Laundrobot. It allows user to reserve washer/dryer in advance or on the spot, to get notified when the laundry load is done, and to pay for doing laundry with their phone.

Research Summary

I conducted research on laundry apps to see which laundry apps exist at this time. I found that while there were few successful apps that allow user’s laundry to be picked up, cleaned and delivered back to them like Washio and FlyCleaners, there were no apps that would allow the users reserve the washer/dryer and pay for the laundry with their phone on the market at the time.

I have surveyed 26 users. All of the users while not enjoying the experience of doing laundry at a public laundry room while accepting it as a necessary evil.

This app could potentially expand into the IoT app, as few users expressed interest in a feature that would tell whether the laundry is done drying or not. There could be a heat resistant sensor placed into the dryer that would transmit that information to the app.

User Personas

Based on the feedback and the demographic information collected in our survey, I have developed the user personas to help us ascertain who our users are.

Customer Journey

I thought about the user’s cycle from discovery to evangelism. I thought of places that they could have learnt about the app. I also thought about what could go wrong with the app and what could serve as a source of frustration for the user.

The most common frustrations reported by users in my survey were fruitless trips to the laundry room in hope to get unoccupied washer or dryer, needing to get quarters, as well as someone else handling user’s laundry. Based on that I’ve created the customer journey to what the user’s pain points are.

Task Flows

We have came up with the task flows. We kept the steps that are necessary to complete a given task to a minimum.

Wireframes

I created wireframes and conducted user testing. Based on the user feedback several revisions have been made.

GUI Kit

We followed the Material Design Guidelines in creation of the GUI kit . We wanted it to be fun, simple and contemporary looking. We chose subtle gradients and bright colors, so the task of doing laundry would seem less of a chore.

User testing

We conducted user testing with wireframe prototype. Then we created the skins and tested some more. Luckily for us it was easy to find users to test the app. According to our user research the majority of people has had experience using a public laundry room.

Screens

We have designed the screens that were influenced by the Material Design guidelines. We used minimal visual design to support app’s simplicity and ease of use, but kept a light–hearted and fun approach.

Phone App Prototype Video

To better illustrate the interaction with the app I’ve created a prototype interaction video.

Landing Page

I designed and coded Laundrobot landing page. Since the purpose of a landing page is to attract, inform and convert potential users, I focused on making the design attractive and keeping the page informative but concise.

The idea for the design was to use bubbles as a backdrop. I used brand colors and the same typeface selection for visual consistency across all platforms.