ID, Branding, IXD - 2015
Honeywell
I worked on various projects during my 2015 industrial design internship with Honeywell. Additionally, I could use 20% of my time to work on a personal project related to Honeywell’s brand and product portfolio. I decided to envision the brand and quality alignment of Honeywell’s licensed consumer products.
Approach
Most consumers recognize the Honeywell brand for their products, such as the fans, humidifiers, and heaters found in large retailers such as Target and Walmart. These products and packaging did not align with other Honeywell products mainly because the brand is licensed to a third-party vendor who designs and distribute these products. Through research and various design proposals, I wanted to eliminate the disconnect between the Honeywell design language and the licensee’s products.
Product and User Research
After collecting and reading countless product reviews on major online retailers, I was able to collect valuable data at no additional cost to this project. The data revealed pain points in the product designs, unfulfilled user experience expectations, and unmet brand expectations. I also analyzed the design elements of the current products and found many design inconsistencies.
AdDresssing the issues Through design
To propose an improved licensed product lineup, I wanted to redesign three licensed products, a tower fan, a humidifier, and a heater. Given this project's time constraints, I could only concentrate on the most popular and highest-selling product, the tower fan. The tower fan design had to display closer attention to aesthetics and resolve usability issues.
Inspiration
Flowing surfaces were the biggest inspiration for this project. I wanted the design to be truthful to its function. Exposed functional surfaces that direct airflow can also be beautiful when exposed.
Simplified UI
A cost-effective capacitive touch DFSTN LCD can offer a simple high, contrasting user interface. All UI elements hide when an interaction has ceased for a set time duration. The UI was prototyped and tested in Adobe XD with a rendered contextual image to visualize the overall experience better.
Technical Improvements
I found many design flaws when testing the best-selling licensed tower fan (Honeywell HY-108). These flaws included the fan being wobbly due to a motor mounted too high, airflow being pushed out at air intakes, and a user interface that rotates when the fan oscillates. The fan also has no smart connected capabilities, which makes it an awkward product amongst all the other Honeywell Home-connected devices. In the new fan design, I addressed these issues.
Brand and packaging
The decade-old packaging was riddled with graphics and photos of doctors, smiling stock photo families, and random sparkles. I redesigned the packaging to fit into Honeywell's overall brand language and convey a sense of quality and pride to its contents. I kept the packaging design clean with a strong emphasis on the product and displayed product features through understandable iconography. The redesigned packaging design can now be seen in all retailers that carry Honeywell products.
