The Project

As Design Lead for this project I helped Dreamsville to develop a convenient and profitable way to offer sustainable bedding products for hotels while reducing the high volumes of waste generated by the bedding industry in the hospitality sector.

Part 1

Discover and understand users

This section is all about discovering and understanding the user's needs, goals, and pain points. I set myself a few research goals before getting started.

1. Learn as much as possible about my potential users.
2. Understand current solutions and the competitive landscape.
   
3. Determine if and how I can leverage new technology and innovation.

Interviews, Surveys and user characteristics

I conducted 5 interviews with Hotel Managers and Hotel Service managers — in parallel, we also sent out at typeform survey and received 10 responses. Here is a summary of the average user’s characteristics:

• Between the ages of 35 and 64
• They consider bedding products as the main way to improve the sleep quality of their guests.
• As managers, their main goal is to keep a balance between price and quality.
• Hotel managers are looking for ways consume more sustainable products.

Limitations and assumptions: Survey respondents were not pre-screened.

Key user insights

I noticed some common themes and patterns among the interviews and survey responses.

User feedback

Here’s what some of the users said when asked about planning consuming bedding products for their hotels.

You don't want to use someone's used pillow but you want to use it if it's recycled.

If we can maintain the quality requirements, it’s a great idea to switch to a rental bedding model.

User persona

Ann Pihl

40 yrs old | Tallinn, Estonia | Hotel Manager

Bio

Ann  is  hotel manager with over 15 years of experience in the hospitality industry. She currently manages a boutique hotel in Tallinn, Estonia.
Ann is known for her exceptional leadership skills and attention to detail, which have helped her create a successful and well-respected hotel operation.
Responsible for overseeing all aspects of hotel operations, including guest services, staff management, budgeting and financial reporting, marketing, and maintaining high standards of cleanliness and safety.

Goal

• Keep high-quality standards for their bedding products while being profitable.
• Offer a service that is updated and follows the market trends.
• Make sustainable decisions for the environment and their business.

Pain Points

• It is hard to find high-quality bedding products for a good price.
• The maintenance of used bedding products is expensive for the hotel.
• It is expensive to dispose used pillows and duvets — the material goes to waste.
• It is expensive to dispose used pillows and duvets — the material goes to waste.

Part 2

Problem definition & ideation

At this stage of the project, it was time to re-frame my goal and narrow down its scope based on the insights I gained from users.

Problem statement

Hotel managers and Hotel Service Managers need an affordable, good quality and sustainable bedding solution with which they can easily request products that fit their quality standards — and also keep them clean and solve the pain or getting rid of old pillows and duvets.

The idea

Circular bedding Service for Hospitality

To address the users pain points we decided to design a  custom-made sustainable bedding service under a subscription model.
It would make the process of consuming bedding products, comfortable and convenient while reducing the waste generated by the bedding industry.

Requirements

Based on the user's goals and needs:

Be convenient

• Allow users to request custom-made bedding products.
• Guide the users on the best maintenance practices for their bedding products.
• Facilitate the disposal of used bedding products and reduce the waste by recycling the material.

Be transparent and trustworthy

• Communicate the environmental impact of the products and materials selected.
• Be clear about the processes and materials selectet for the productions of Dreamsville products.

Product Life-Cycle design to enable circularity

As Design Lead for this project I also developed a product-life-cycle map — this helped us to detect the opportunities to increase and facilitate the circularity of the bedding products for the service implementation.

Early Landing page sketch

The service would be communicated through a landing page withing Dreamsville's e-shop. The wireframes were build following the research insights.

Part 3

Visual design & prototyping

This section demonstrates the designed solution. Figma was used as the design tool.

The final designs

Three steps to circular and luxurious bedding

The complexity of a circular bedding as a service explained in three simple steps.

Last words

While carrying out this exercise I had to make assumptions and trade-offs in order to make progress and stick to the timeline. Here are a few of the constraints and trade-offs that I considered:

• Usability testing: I did not have time to carry out user testing in this exercise. Ideally, I have liked to incorporate feedback from users on the designs through usability testing.
• Service concept validation: The concept was validated during the interviewing process and also the sales team presented it to different Hotel Manager and Hotel Service Managers. They expressed to be interested — and the sales process would happen in around 2-3 months after I finalyzed this project.