Whirlpool India wanted me to re-design their highest selling economy product (180 Lt Refrigerator). The challenge was to come up with a cost-effective product that would also enrich the experience of the end user.

After doing intensive ethnographic studies of the users, their behaviour and lifestyle patterns, the key words I had were robust, stylish, and bright colours. Based on these findings, I created a mood board, a style board and a colour board. I came up with several concepts keeping key elements in mind. After filtering, the selected ones were sent out for user feedback.

I started generating more concepts. Other teams also joined us in designing the best possible product. Each design was judged meticulously by the team member judge keeping in mind processes from manufacturing to marketing. Finally, all the teams agreed on seven concepts. The selected concepts were sent out for full scale mock-ups for final visualisation. These full scale mock-ups were sent out for research to come up with one best possible option. The results showed all the concepts had potential, but one concept was liked very much by the user, as the concept fulfilled requirements of consumers.

Design is a multi spectrum field, so working with experts of each area and understanding their points of view is essential for developing any good product. Sometimes, things become chaotic, but designers have the ability to synthesise these diversions.