The most functional and helpful application speaks German language.
Bauknecht is a German appliance company. The company was founded in 1919 by Gottlob Bauknecht, to build an electronic workshop in Taiflingen, Germany.
Since 1989, the company belongs to Whirlpool group. Most of the Whirlpool appliances are usually produced for the Bauknecht brand too. The differentiations between the two brands appliances are small aestethical details and different finishing materials.
Problem definition
The Whirlpool connected appliances were designed and produced with the Bauknehct brand and aesthetics too. This means that a dedicated Bauknecht application was needed for those specific appliances.
In order to achieve this goal the Whirlpool app for its connected suite was taken into account and redesigned following the Bauknecht design guide.
Audience
The first step was to understand the target audience for the application. This analysis helped us to understand how to redesign the Whirlpool app for the ending app users.
The Bauknecht brand target is very different from the Whirlpool one. The German clientele is much more rational and traditional. They can be considered as “Life balancer” rather than “Live Achiever” (Whirlpool users). The German customers need something clearer, sharper and immediate, in few words: more German.
This target analysis brought us to decide that Bauknecht app must have: different style, different aesthetics, different colors and a different font.
The challenge was to design a complete aesthetically different app from the Whirlpool one keeping all the functionalities and feature of the original brand.
My role in the team
In this project I had the full responsibility and management of the design part.
I firstly had to outline the project Scope Of Work (SOP) and roadmap. In these documents I defined the project objectives, goals and steps using a GANT chart. It was a useful documentation that helped us to identify the project milestones, timing and a clear map to respect the project deadlines.
Then I had to outline the guidelines to follow for the redesign. For this activity I met with the Bauknecht brand and the developers' teams in order to identify the key elements to take into consideration during the visual design phase.
At the beginning of the design phase we selected the most important and representative screens from the Whirlpool ones. We did this exercise because there was no reason to redesign the entire package of screens already designed for Whirlpool brand. In this way we focused only on the key layouts (about 200 screens from the Whirlpool 1600 screens).
Design process
The aim of design phase was to deliver to the developers’ team the basic material needed for the the Bauknecht app implementation. On the basis of the previous selection we asked to an external partner (creative agency) to redesign the selected graphical tables dealing the most important decisions and discussing the main design directions together with the Bauknecht brand team. We weekly met together with the creative agency and the brand team in order to compare the design proposals with their needs and expectations.
After the brand direction’s approval for the new Bauknecht app version, we asked the external agency to focus on the guidelines design. This activity consisted in the definition (in terms of size, top distances, element and background colors and so on) for each single integrated part of the screen. From a label to an icon. From a text box to an active button.
In the following pictures you can see an example of this activity. This exercise was executed for all the selected screens.
Finally, we exported each single element and each single icon that was part of the screens. The aim was to create a graphic library providing easy access for the developers. In this way whenever they needed an icon or a graphical element for the screens implementation, they had this collection of ingredients to use and reuse.
Lesson learned
I consider myself very proud for the collaboration with the creative agency and the developers team that brought to the obtained results. In the end the Bauknecht app keeps all the functionalities and the features foreseen for the Whirlpool app version but with a new and refreshed aesthetic. This application communicates another language in comparison with the Whirlpool version. It is completely different under the graphical point of view. It’s sharper and stronger. More rational and traditional.
In conclusion, Bauknecht brand team was very satisfied for the work done and for the effort spent for the app redesign. I was so glad to hear that!
