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Image by Mika Baumeister

Naming a Brand New Product Line

Using remote interviews and open card sorting to find a name for a new mobile device made by a Fortune 100 company

**NOTE: Due to NDAs, I am unable to provide full details of the findings and results of this project. I have included what I am legally allowed to disclose.

OBJECTIVE

​​

  • Provide naming conventions to my Fortune 100 client for a product release later that year

  • Provide a research design that could be replicated in international markets

  • Conduct user interviews and open card sorts to discover modern naming conventions for smart foldables

RESULTS

 

  • Provided client with two naming conventions from participant feedback – either "flip" or "fold"

  • Completed N=14 user interviews and open card sorts

  • My research design was replicated for the same study in Germany and France

Background

- Fortune 100 client in the consumer technology space

​- A new, foldable mobile device was coming out later that year; the client needed a name for it
​
- I had to design a study that would work across cultures and languages

  • The same study would be run in Germany and France after my US team was finished

A foldable smart device

- My Roles

  • Project leader, research designer, client liaison + session moderator

Strategy

Study design had to be simple, easy to translate into other languages

  • Germany and France would run the same tests again

  • Quick enough to only take ~1 hour

  • Had to dig into details enough to uncover why users referred to foldable devices the way they did

Focus on qualitative feedback

  • ​Given client need was to discover a new name, quantitative data made less sense for testing purposes​

Participants already had folding devices

  • The client's foldable wasn't out yet, but other devices were available​

    • I interviewed people who already had folding devices​

    • These participants could more easily explain why they called their devices the names they used

Open card sorting would help

  • I created a way for users to sort devices remotely, on a slide deck

    • By organizing data visually, I could more readily identify mental models showing how users organized different smart devices

    • E.g., do a tablet and a smartphone go in the same category?

    • What about a tablet and a laptop?

    • What about a flip phone from the 2000s and a modern foldable smart device?

An icon by cube29, a user and artist at flaticon.com.

Icon by cube29 at flaticon.com

Testing Methods

- In the US, I completed N=14 60-minute user interviews

  • Ask owners of folding smart devices what they called their devices and why

    • Fold?

    • Flip?

    • Phablet?

    • Phone-Tablet?​

- Open Card Sort

  • Users had five minutes to categorize different devices on a online slide deck 

  • After, they were asked their reasoning for why they organized devices the way they did

  • The images of devices on the slide deck were randomized to ensure initial image locations on the slide did not influence participants

An example of the open card sort activity. Various devices are scattered on a slide deck screen.

A recreation of a slide deck used in this study. The locations of the images were randomized before each test to avoid potential visual approximation bias.

High-Level Findings

1. Participants wanted TWO names for foldable smart devices – the "flip" or the "fold"​

  • The orientation of the device's folding function impacted opinions the most

    • If device folds along Y-axis, the device "folds" like a book

    • If device folds along X-axis, the device "flips" like a makeup mirror

A screenshot depicting a "fold" smart device. The device bends along the y-axis to open and close.
A screenshot depicting a "flip" smart device. The device bends along the x-axis to open and close.

Images courtesy of Marques Brownlee's video, "The State of Foldables 2022: Samsung vs The World!" (2022)

2. Participants categorized devices by computing power and portability rather than foldability​

  • The most important factor was how many tasks a device could handle, how powerful it was and whether it could be held on someone's person

    • That said, participants expressed nostalgia for flip phones and "Phablets" of yesteryear

    • Some participants expressed excitement at the thought of foldable phones coming back, saying they missed the visceral feeling of manipulating mobile devices â€‹

An example of the open card sort activity. This time the devices are sorted by category, based on computing power.

Participants often categorized devices like this, focusing on a blend of computing power and how portable each device could be during everyday use.

Results

- Delivery of a slide deck report for the client

  • The slide deck provided:

    • A background on the study and its objectives​

    • Insights and quotes from user interviews

    • Images from open card sorting that illustrated participant mental models

    • Recommendations and reasonings for two possible names – the "flip" or the "fold"

- The new product line of foldables was released later that year using the naming conventions from this study:​

An advertisement for the newly-named device, Spring 2025

The foldable device is still available for sale using the naming conventions discovered in this study.

- The study was easily replicated by research partners in Germany and France

  • By making a test plan that was easy to translate and replicate, the study was run twice more in Europe in different countries and discovered similar results​​

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