As part of our class structure we work on real world problems to give students an applied learning experience as we teach innovation processes. In the Fall of 2017 the ID 500 Design Thinking course participated in the Johnson and Johnson Innovation Challenge. The class chose two different challenges to participate in and divided into two teams.
The first challenge was to improve the user experience of the Neutrogena Light Therapy Treatment Mask. The second challenge was to create a device that can protect the child when outside from air pollution and/or monitor it to know which days are worse than others.
Over a span of 4 weeks students utilized the Design Thinking process to develop understanding, define the problem they wanted to solve, ideate, prototype and test their ideas. Each team presented their solutions in a Pitch style presentation in the class environment and then submitted their solution for preliminary judging in the Johnson and Johnson Innovation Challenge.
After reading dozens of product reviews, one key issue users had with the product was that the product required you to wear it for up to 20 minutes where you basically had to stay still, but this caused the user stress and often made them anxious to the point they would not complete the treatment. So, the Neutrogena team developed a series of scents and relaxing sounds that would help the user relax and pass the time more calmly. This idea was accepted in the first round of judging, and the team was awarded funding to continue to develop their idea further for the next round.
Since this started a class project, several of the team members could not continue due to graduation or other commitments, but members for the air pollution team stepped in and joined the Neutrogena team to add support and skills. The project continued outside of class time with Master of Innovation Design (MID) students and solutions were iterated to improve the user experience.
In May of 2018, 5 MID students and one faculty flew to New Orleans to present their final version and were awarded the top prize in their category and additional funding. Since that project several of the students have gone on to develop more products and launch several companies utilizing the skills they learned through the applied learning process. Read more about the Johnson & Johnson final pitch from the student's perspective here.
