Design Thinking for Enhanced Bathroom Experience
Abhishek 😊
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Posted May 26, 2025
Design thinking project to enhance bathroom experience through user insights and prototyping.
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Mar 1, 2022 - Mar 22, 2022
Design thinking project — Improving Bathroom Experience
Design is not limited to apps or websites, it is the experience we live in our day to day life
Why this project
To improve design thinking and understanding and having a good understanding of the process of design
What is design thinking?
The essential ability to combine empathy, creativity and rationale to meet user needs and drive business success.
“We spend a lot time designing the Bathroom, but not enough time thinking about the people who are crossing it”
1 EMPATHIZE
It is done to get a personal grasp of their users’ needs, I had to put myself in their shoes and see things from their standpoint.
“You ≠ User?”
NOTE: Don’t try to make users biased ask about their experience and frame questions in that regard and the question are conversational in nature.
To know about users I conducted a User interview which will help me to identify their pain points:
Interview questions
Tell me about yourself?
How many members share a bathroom and does it affect your experience ?
Do u have some safety concerts while using the bathroom -hazards in your bathroom?
What things annoy u after bathing, eg cleaning the floor all time, slippery experience?
What is your ideal experience and how much time does it take on average to bath?
How good is ventilation and lighting and how can do u want to improve on them?
Do u feel refreshed after taking bath and what are the things that u love about your bathroom?
Have u been to your friend’s or hotel bathroom and what features u loved and would love to have in your experience?
What features u would love to have in your experience of bathing?
After conducting user interviews, I collected the User insights to understand each user. Here are the insights from the user interview I conducted.
Finally, the insights I got from the user interviews are as below :
Interview insights😎
This stage helped me understanding of user needs, their thoughts, and feelings.
2 DEFINE STAGE :
With the user profiles in hand, the next step was to identify ALL possible problem statements that I could infer and to figure out WHY were they important to the users. A simple concept that helped me was to
“learn, unlearn and relearn”
After taking interviews came up with many insights and discovered many user problems faced by users and why it is imp to them :
Cleaning issues — due to constant water running and making it slippery due to tile present
Temperature and control on it during cold shower- during winter and summer if there are excess windows it result in cold windblow causing uncomfortable condition , in cold gets frozen and in hot low ventilation
Large space — Small bathroom causes many problems as not enough space to move or add extra application
Wardrobe for clothes — if clothes fall or due to shower can get wet and unusable
Washbasin inside bathroom — to wash hand u can’t just make the floor dirty every time , what if there is attached washroom
Soap accessible and clean- soap should be easy to reach and use while bathing ,Soap not reachable
Slippery floor, inside and outside bathroom — slippery floor result in slipping and causing accidents , forced user to change clothes outside bathroom
Fumes after bath — good ventilation is a must , as water can cause moisture on walls and if there is attached washroom can result in bad wind
Electric shock — Due to presence of electric application like gezer there are electric application are present so there safety is imp
Insects appear — Insects can cause hygiene problem , user can get scared and can cause spooky problems
Cone-shaped bathroom — symmetric bathroom help in better reaching and usage also looks aesthetically pleasing
Tap not marked for Hot and cold water faucet design confused new users.
Door movement hit — if doors are made of wood can result in
Moisture in walls — caused paint problem and electric shock hazardious
Hard water — it causes marks on taps, walls and does not produce enough lather of water , also result in rusting and piping change , this is a major problem in villages and areas with bad water purification ,Replacement causes huge money, Tiles to want cleaning regularly. Results in Gezer replacement in 3 years and Tap changing in 6 years
Water collection : Water gets collected as the floor is not leveled
Position of Washroom inside bathroom : with close proximity to bathing area created unhygienic condition for users.
3 IDEATE STAGE
The goal of this stage is to come up with ideas as fast as possible Based on the above user problem finding, Some really fruitful and crazy ideas came out by following the “Crazy 8” method. To come up with 8 solutions for each problem in 8 minutes.
Hard water:
1hard water filter so clean water beforehand
2 plastic system so no changing, meter to showcase health of water so it can be checked beforehand
3 Setting marks on taps for a different color — showing the temperature of the water coming from taps in digital format or using Holographic image projection on the tap
Wardrobe:
1 The detachable wardrobe only comes after u tap and no waterfalls on it
2 Arranging the wardrobe to give minimal look to the bathroom with a maximum design challenge
Insect Prevention :
Improving drainage system — help in reducing water collection
slanting cone-shaped drainage so insects can’t climb up
Slippery floor: small holes in the floor, vacuum to evaporate fast, stone flooring instead of tiles to decrease slippery
Shockproof: Touch screen tappable controls or voice controls, motion sensor for switches
Geezer: Just show red or blue color — u can not use in the shower — mixture before coming in the shower and if too hot cut off the channel
Ventilation: 2 options for cold and hot temp, rotatable fan to remove air faster, flap-type design
Door improvement: Door only one-way opening
Hard water: Experience Ruins, 1 hard water filter so clean water beforehand, having a plastic system so no changing, meter to showcase health of water so it can be checked beforehand
Meter: to show water saved, wasted and recycled by bathing to save water, wall cleaning, automatic, white stains preventive material
Hairs get clotting: It’s a major problem for most of my users as occasionally hairs get clotted in the pores which result in flooding of water, Use a disposable hole cover which collects all the hair inside it and you can throw them
Arranging the wardrobe to give minimal look to the bathroom with a maximum design challenge
💡Top 3 Idea
Idea 1: Hard water filter
This is a major problem in rural areas result in changing of fitting over a period, 1 problem results in many other different problems like cleaning walls, clogged tap, changing pipes
Hard water cleaning system to clean and remove impurities in water, and adding a plastic system to have a proper system of pipes and less replacement of geezers and taps
Idea 2: Movable Wardrobe
Wardrobe improvement, cloth and essentials improvement So that clothes don’t get a vet or don’t fall on the floor and get vet and a cozy place to keep towels and easily accessible and improves bathroom experience
Idea 3: Insect problem
Due to small houses nowadays Insects come pouring out of the drainage and can result in flooding, hygiene problem, goosebumps and injury. Insects result in hygiene problems and cause goosebumps to user
4. Prototype Stage (PS)
This is the stage where you actually make a representational model of the solution you came up with. I choose to work on improving drainage and insect problem as it is very common and can result in accidents
I came up with 3 different ideas but went forward with a drainage problem as it will help in solving 3 issues
1 improving drainage water flow resulting in less flooding
2 reduce insect problem and improving and cleaning easy
About the idea, This prototype aims in making and improving a drainage system that will help in reducing water drainage
As we know that as the surface area increases the flow of water also increases and the main reason for flooding happens when outflow<inflow of water
Acc to my testing when we place a cone-shaped pipe result in increased pressure of outflow water so it will result in less flooding and
For insect problems, we can incorporate a better and slant sieve which will make it difficult for insects to travel up the pipes
5 TESTING STAGE
Iteration is part of the design process so so I went back to users and asked them for feedback this is what they wanted to say
Feedback :
Hair and soap lather will be collected so should be replaceable
Drainage clogging and hair
Cleaning is a big issue
Insects and drainage may get stuck due to cone shape and impurities stuck
The holes will be very small so that all the hairs and all the dirt can be collected on them and the remaining water can drain off
Changes after incorporating the feedback from your users.
Iteration 1 |Make it one way so that insects don’t come back and big enough to pass water and soap — making and keeping a cone-shaped filter helps in improving the flow of water and helps in keeping insects out
Iteration 2 |Use one-way entry plastic instead, in which there is a one-way entry Possible
So keeping the users in mind I made sure that users should not use their hands to clean and can use replaceable net-like cone design which can be changed and is inexpensive
KEY LEARNING AND FUTURE SCOPE
Learning
1. How do users play an important role in bringing the best in a product, my needs not = to user need
2. Iteration is important to catch defects earlier
3. Focus on 1 problem at a time
4. Follow the steps of UX research
Future scope :
1. Prototype in a better way by using 3-d tools
2. Test the product in real life and implement a use case
3. Interview more candidates and better insights
