Diaper Design with Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble engaged our team to design an accessible diaper that would work not just for parents with a range of abilities, but for anyone who might be responsible for a diaper change. We had 10 weeks to move from research through a high-fidelity prototype ready for presentation to P&G leadership.

My role was to lead the research process and ensure that every design decision was directly traceable back to user data. I built the frameworks that organized raw interview findings into prioritized insights and mapped each directly to a design requirement. Translating what people said versus what they did into actionable recommendations was my job.

The research details, frameworks, and final outcomes are under NDA. I'm happy to walk through the full process in a private conversation — contact me here.

  • Usability testing, user interviews, writing discussion guides, survey design, experimental design, user psychology

  • Prototyping, frameworks, journey maps, iterative concepts, driving user insights into design elements

  • Consumer Research

    I conducted three structured rounds of interviews (eight participants per round) using a deliberately evolving discussion guide. Early rounds were exploratory, focused on understanding behavioral context, pain points, and the emotional dimensions of diaper changes across different ability levels. Later rounds were evaluative, testing specific prototype elements and gathering comparative feedback.

    Participant composition was intentional: some interviewees remained consistent across rounds to track response changes, while new recruits with varying physical abilities were added in each cycle to stress-test assumptions and avoid designing for a narrow slice of the actual user population.

    Themes, tensions, and insights were organized into frameworks after each round of interviews. Only then were any design changes made. Nothing moved forward based on one person's feedback. Everything moved forward because of strong and consistent patterns in the data.

  • Prototyping

    I started with eight distinct prototype concepts, each designed with deliberately (and sometimes extremely) varied elements such as fastening mechanisms, material textures, form factors, etc. This was so that early usability testing could eliminate what wasn't working rather than just confirm preferences.

    Across each iterative round, I narrowed based on evidence. Elements that consistently created friction were cut. Elements that resonated across diverse participants were retained refined, recombined, and isolated. In some cases I blended components from multiple concepts into a single prototype to test how combined features performed together under realistic use conditions.

    The process was designed to converge the most desirable options over time and to systematically reduce uncertainty until only the strongest solution remained.

  • Final Deliverable

    The final prototype was the cumulative output of every round. Each interview cycle added a layer of confidence and specificity that the previous one couldn't have produced on its own.

    We presented to P&G leadership and they confirmed plans to move forward with the concept. What that outcome reflects is a research process rigorous enough that the client trusted the result.

    Throughout the process, I learned how and when to trust my gut, even when the data seemed to fold in on itself. I built both trust and rigor, never relying solely on either and never put all my eggs in one basket.