drill redesign

project summary:

the goal was to take an everyday object and figure out a way to redesign on it to be more appealing to a user persona that wouldn’t necessarily buy the product normally. my everyday object was a dewalt hand drill.

first up was identifying my user persona.

Max is who we are designing for. Out of everything we know about him, there are two things that stand out.

He is very tech literate
He wants to balance his personal life betterThis is important because it tells us he’ll be comfortable and able to use almost any type of drill in a short period of time.

This information also allows me to come up with an initial problem statement.

What type of drill could Max use to improve his personal life?

Keeping that problem statement in mind for later, I proceeded to create a journey map for my user persona. This map is an imaginary situation with Max interacting with a DeWalt hand drill for the first time. Once again, there are a few more key takeaways from this.

The drill case needs to be more attention grabbing
Instructions as to what certain functions do could be clearer
How can we keep Max engaged with the drill for longer than a single project?

Next for me was creating a competitive matrix to gauge what sort of drills already existed, while hopefully matching that to the problem statement. Luckily such an opportunity existed within creating a weaker and more expensive drill.

And while frankly, it may sound silly, what I’m trying to create for Max is a more simple drill that can still appeal to his bold and innovative preferences.

I created a mood board to help potentially narrow down and focus in more of the aesthetic when i was sketching.

The end product of this design project was ultimately the down selection of my ideas, in the form of more refined concept sketches.

This down selection led me following the idea of simplifying the functions of a hand drill down to it’s core capabilities, while still trying to keep a sleek, bold look to the design to drive customers like Max.

And as a final note for this design, it’s important for me to touch back upon one of the key points of the problem statement. How will this design improve what Max does in his personal life? Put shortly, this current design won’t. It would definitely be a design he’d use if he ever needed a drill, but if I were to re-explore this design in the future, I would like to research and look further into designing a solution for that.