A Core77 reader-submitted case study —

A Cold January Day in 2017: The team at DesignThink was asked to visit Dorel Juvenile Group USA to review a "Special Project". The development team at Dorel JG wasted no time introducing us to their latest infant car seat (ICS) project. They were experimenting with the idea of developing a seat that would reduce the struggles parents faced when trying to transition their baby from the car and carry their baby in the removable seat portion of the ICS. The team at DesignThink has designed several car seats over the years and we instantly recognized the unique opportunity, as well as the challenge that this project offered, and were eager and excited to get started.

Our Role as the Innovation Incubator: We partnered with Dorel to act as the innovation incubator to lead the project team through the fuzzy front-end and define the product's overall features and characteristics of use. Upon successful concept definition, the project would be positioned under the Maxi Cosi brand and ultimately transferred to the Maxi Cosi team in Europe and a European design group to carry the innovation to production.

The Problem at Hand: By removing the seat from the base that is installed in the car, parents can take the baby with them while running errands or visiting people and places. However, a problem associated with this system is that some removable seats can weigh up to 16 lbs. and the baby can weigh up to 35 lbs. for a combined arm-crushing weight of 50+lbs.!!

We established two primary goals: 1) reduce the overall weight of the seat to lighten the load, while maintaining structural integrity as to achieve a top crash test rating, and 2) develop new methods that enable parents to lift the seat more easily when moving in and out of the vehicle and when transporting the child in the seat.

Design Team

Patrick Nolan, President at DesignThink, Inc.

Noah Dingler, VP of Industrial Design at DesignThink

Sarah Campbell, VP Human Factors & Usability at DesignThink

Mike Dotsey, VP Engineering at DesignThink

Andrew Miller, Sr. Industrial Designer at DesignThink

Evan Aamodt, Sr. Engineer at DesignThink

Erin Morrissey, Sr. Human Factors & Usability Specialist

Lindsay Malatesta, Industrial Designer at DesignThink

2017 DesignThink, Inc. 2017 Project Kickoff at Dorel JG 2017 Kickoff at Dorel Juvenile Group USA

2017 DesignThink, Inc. Usability Evaluation Usability ease of install and removal evaluation

2017 DesignThink, Inc. Team Huddle DesignThink concept evolution evaluation

2017 DesignThink, Inc. Origin of Maxi Cosi Coral XP Early Ideation that established the final direction

2017 DesignThink, Inc. Handle Carry Strap Handle Carry Strap Breadboard

Maxi Cosi Maxi Cosi Handle Carry Strap in use

2017 DesignThink, Inc. Cross Body Strap Ideation Reduced pressure shoulder strap improves comfort when carrying the baby and reduces the perceived weight of the carrier

Maxi Cosi Maxi Cosi Cross-Body Strap in use

2017 DesignThink, Inc. Improved install and removal DesignThink explores way to improve the ease and control when installing and removing the infant from the car

2017 DesignThink, Inc. Usability Evaluation Usability ease of install and removal evaluation

2017 DesignThink, Inc. & Maxi Cosi User-centric insights established the feature-set and product characteristics that defined the Maxi Cosi Coral XP

Maxi Cosi Maxi Cosi Maxi Cosi Coral XP

The Approach

The structure for the project utilized DesignThink's simplified "DEEP" process:

- Define that for which we will solve - Express possible solutions as quick thumbnail stories - Explain the "what – why – wow" related to user needs - Prototype to demonstrate the merits of the idea

How the Project Unfolded: A series of innovation workshops were hosted at our studio to enable the team to think and problem solve with product at hand. The objective was to think in the "ideal" (do not worry about cost and construction initially) and to "fail fast" (explore, evaluate, and evolve). The following provided the high-level framework for how the team identified and pursued their ideas.

Established Design Targets: Led by our usability team, along with team members from Dorel, we hosted a several day innovation workshop at our studio. We began with a collaborative defining of the design targets based on use, expectations, pain points, and opportunities, which we affinitized and moved directly into physical prototyping to address and evaluate how well the concepts improved the user experience during day-to-day interactions.

Role-Play is the Best Way: To truly understand and empathize with users, we role-played, exploring typical use-case scenarios to inform our ideation. Placing ourselves in the same situations helps us quickly evaluate and improve our concepts. Our efforts focused on solving for the primary user-interface pain-points and opportunities to improve:

- Handle-Carry: Evolution for improved ease when attaching the seat to the base and removing the child from the vehicle

- Cradle-Carry: Exploration to improve how parents can bond with the baby in a more natural holding position

- Cross-Body Strap: Exploration to provide alternate ways to carry the baby while reducing the effects of weight and fatigue on the parent

Iterative User Evaluation Cycle: Our early thoughts and ideas were evaluated by the team and with parents in our research lab. These ideas were then refined to strengthen the evolving direction. The learnings obtained through this method enabled the team to focus on the most meaningful directions and build their value. Listening, understanding, and empathizing allowed our team to develop new ideas in this category that were previously unexplored.

A series of prototypes and user evaluations enabled us to reach a stage of concept definition for an ultra-lightweight car seat that provides parents with improved ways to carry, hold, and secure their baby.

The Results

User-Centered Insights lead to Market Defining Solutions: We embarked on this project with Dorel to define a new car seat with features that take into account those challenges and offer relevant and meaningful solutions. Exploring innovation that is rooted in user insights enabled our team to quickly define those solutions and overcome technical hurdles to deliver new experiences to address real problems faced by parents when using an ICS.

Defining the Direction: The work was documented and handed off to the Maxi-Cosi team in Europe. The output of our innovation incubation became the driving framework used by the teams in Europe to create a truly meaningful and relevant solution for parents in this category.

The DesignThink team is very proud to have been selected by Dorel to play such an important "behind the scenes" role in setting the direction for, and contributing to the success of, the Maxi Cosi Coral XP.

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