Diagnostic
HP Print is redesigning print
for the modern age(Part 2)
HP Print is redesigning print for the modern age
by Ken Musgrave, Head of Global Customer Experience and Global Experience Design, HP;
Sue Richards, General Manager of Home and Consumer Solutions for Print, HP;
Mark Vaughn, Research and Development Project Manager, HP
Once one of the hallmarks of Hewlett-Packard, printers as the world knew them had faded into the background. But, in an always-connected world—where making connections drives us—there remained a chance to re-craft HP’s products in the eyes of a new generation.
Don’t call it an appliance
Consumers continue to view the printer as a product of necessity, rather than desire. To change that mindset, HP had to change the product that propagated it.
In a world where awareness of design continues to grow among consumers, however, the printer feels very, very out of place. It feels like it’s an attached peripheral in an age of cloud-connected, handheld devices.
HP knew it couldn’t ride on the coattails of their past successes—especially when it came to printers. With that in mind, the company charged forward with one goal in mind: Transform printer design by rebuilding it from the ground up.
Luckily—or perhaps fortuitously—designers at HP were already creating innovative products and apps. These flowing fountains of design thinking could (and would) inspire and reinvent the printer.
Ushering in a new age
The first step on the path to innovation required a keen understanding of the ideal customer. As it turned out, most looked at printers and recalled visions of VCRs and other outdated, defunct technology.
Modern consumers clearly valued design and convenience above all else. For anyone who needed proof, they could visit Pinterest and witness how people built cabinets to hide printers or dressed up printers to blend in with minimalist interior designs. No longer viewed as a necessity, printers are treated more like a nuisance—something to hide in a closet to collect dust.
So the challenge quickly became, ‘How can the printer mesh with today’s imperatives?’
To answer that, HP needed to institute a change. What type of printer would appeal to a digitally native customer living in a completely connected world? How could a fresh design reinvigorate consumer interest and convince people it’s fun to print?
Reinventing the design
When HP set out to rebuild the printer, they designed sleek form factors with fun colors . More importantly, they created a product that allows people to interact with printers where, when, and how they wanted. Printing became just as easy as transferring a file from a phone to the physical world.
The HP All-in-One Remote is another prime example of designing with the experience in mind—HP’s driving focus as it looks toward the future.
The impetus for the creation of the HP All-in-One was to facilitate a relationship between you and your printer. With it, you can connect to other HP printers on your network—at home and at the office, for example. Beyond that, you can create high-quality documents from the camera-enabled HP PageLift feature. You can perform maintenance tasks and change printer settings. You can even use it to order original HP printing supplies, register your printer, and get HP support.
A brighter future
By meeting the challenges facing printers and printing accessories with design-oriented solutions, HP successfully brought the printer to the modern age.
That was just the tip of the iceberg, though. When it comes to the potential of design thinking and innovation at the company, HP is only just getting started. Innovation is underway at every single level, with designers at HP creating new products and apps to help hurtle printers—and every other product offering—into the age of mobility, cloud computing, and seamless user experiences.
For HP, the future—and the future of printing—has never looked brighter.
Pocket printing with Sprocket—printing gets a whole new narrative
Many younger customers grew up in a world where photographs and documents live on devices, rather than on paper. For many, the act of “printing” is an entirely foreign (and dated) concept.
The future of printing will depend on what these digitally native users choose to bring into the physical world—and how. New print solutions need to recognize the way these users do things and meet their expectations, not the other way around.
We need to not just design tech that is faster. We can’t just design tech that is smaller. We need to design tech that is smarter.
The HP Sprocket—pocket printing on the go.
A Millennial spin
Enter the HP Sprocket Portable Photo Printer. The wireless, palm-size printer syncs up with smartphones and uses special paper to print 2x3 photos without ink. Users can decorate the photos with an accompanying mobile app and print the photos onto stickers, resulting in a product that brings the shareability of social media to photo printing.
“Many of our photos are trapped in the digital prison,” says Sue Richards, General Manager of Home and Consumer Solutions for Print at HP. “The Sprocket helps create those memories and give people that documentation to bring back the emotional experience they had in the moment. We’re putting more of a millennial spin on what was—previously—just a utility.”
In short, HP aimed to shift the printer from being an at-home, single-function product to integrating with the way we live—on the go and in your pocket. Instead of forcing traditional photo prints onto younger users, who are unlikely to suddenly start printing all their pictures and protecting them under plastic sheets in bulky albums, HP designed Sprocket around the way those users already experience photography.
On-the-go functionality
How do today’s users experience photography? “It’s mobile,” says Mark Vaughn, Research and Development Project Manager at HP.
“At your house, maybe you’re printing documents, but the Sprocket can go with you,” Vaughn says. “It’s super easy. You turn on Bluetooth, you get the app, and you go. It’s fun; it’s immediate gratification; it’s additive to the experience; and it’s in the moment.”
Sprocket’s capabilities enables users to complement their journals and living spaces with prints. They also can easily print out graphics to create decals for sports equipment, laptops, and other personal items.
Design thinking, exemplified
To create products like Sprocket, HP is deeply studying users’ wants and needs. Doing so helps to inform the final product and, ultimately, ensure its future success.
Sprocket, in particular, doesn’t just provide a new experience; it dazzles customers—particularly HP’s younger audience—with a stunning design. And that “dazzle” perfectly exemplifies design thinking and innovation. Which, as it happens, are the values HP values most.
HP Print Bot—more dialogue, fewer dialog boxes
The computing world has been driving toward simpler, cleaner, and more compact designs for years. The printer, however, has necessarily resisted this trend—until now.
Due to its mechanical nature, printers still have a number of moving parts with which users must contend. This complexity also extends beyond the physical printer and into the printing process, with print dialog boxes littered with options, ranging from margin width to print resolution. Today’s user doesn’t have time for all that.
That’s where the HP Print Bot comes in. With it, HP has successfully reduced this complexity by allowing users to print photos and documents directly from Facebook Messenger.
The bot interacts with users, sending encouraging missives like, “Nice photo, Kimmy!” and it eliminates the dialog box, giving users the one-button simplicity they’ve come to expect in their digital lives.
“Younger people expect beauty and simplicity—computing by thumb,” says Mark Vaughn, Research and Development Project Manager at HP. “They don’t want to see big print dialog boxes. They just want to jump in, maybe make a choice or two, and have fun doing it.”
Historically, printers have been a source of stress for some users (think of the coworker who’s always banging on the machine, trying to get it to print the agenda for a meeting that started two minutes ago). HP’s Print Bot is designed to remove that stress, and to make the experience more seamless.
Ken Musgrave
Sue Richards
Mark Vaughn
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