Personal computing and personal printers had a nice run. It started in the Eighties with dot-matrix platforms, then inkjet and laser. Solutions evolved in pursuit of value propositions that balanced hardware and consumables. At one point, ink for consumer printers characterized as one of the most expensive items purchased by home business owners.
Then came mobile devices. And PDFs. Printing has become more deliberate.
HP was closely monitoring these changes in the printing marketplace. While home printing was in decline overall, it was trending upwards for home-based businesses relying on printing solutions that match the size and needs of their businesses.
As a perennial innovator in the printing space, HP knew that a deeper understanding of how and why small businesses used printing as a value add could inform how they approached the performance and economics of a next-generation HP printer portfolio.
The Response: Identify the deal home business printing experience
HP partnered with Lextant to unlock the unmet needs in the category by first creating a model for the ideal home business printing experience visualizing the emotional return that home-based business owners said the experience should provide, including product benefits that would make that experience possible.
We then translated those insights into sensory cues that could be activated in the design and development process for home printers and digital printing solutions moving through the NPD pipeline.
Measuring what matters
We deployed our Experience Metrics™ process to quantify and prioritize prospective design themes. HP was able to evaluate product concepts and prototypes against the ideal experience metrics to clarify which design choices were most effective in providing the desired benefits consumers would find compelling.
The Result
With the focus driven by Lextant’s Insight Translation and Experience Metrics analysis, HP’s team has created and delivered a complete portfolio of transformational, innovative home business printer solutions to market including:
Moving The Needle
By identifying insights about the ideal experience, and then structuring them for experience metrics analysis, Lextant helped the HP team conceive, develop and commercialize a portfolio of transformative home business printer solutions.
“The Lextant research was one of the most transformational pieces of work I saw in my career at HP.” Rob Moser – former Director of Design, HP; currently Global Head of Product & Experience-Autonomous Vehicles, Ford Motor Company
HP Tango™ Series
Tango series printers are designed to naturally blend and integrate with home décor and seamlessly facilitate printing from anywhere, anytime integrating with mobile devices via the HP Smart App.
HP SmartTank and Neverstop Series:
These printer series are both outfitted with an innovative high-capacity toner tank and replacement system. It operates for months on a single, expansive toner cartridge, significantly reducing the total cost of ownership for a home-based business platform.
Home-based business owners embraced these new solutions leading to an increase in market share for HP in addition to top-line sales growth. The research insights gained through the process also helped HP to develop and build innovative services and experiences focused on ease of use for the home-based market including its Instant Ink program, the intuitive HP Smart App, voice integration with digital assistants Alexa, Siri and Cortana, and its Print, Play & Learn website.
The new HP home-based business printer portfolio received the 2020 “IF Design Award” and has been recognized across home computing, small business, and technology media including PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award for the OfficeJet Pro 9015e.