HP Flow 2.0

What opportunity was the project addressing?

This design addresses the productivity losses and quality-of-work-life stress that many office workers experience regarding the digitization and management of documents in the workplace. The need for a comprehensive digitalization station—a one-stop shop for digitalizing paper documents into the cloud without tedious post-processing on a PC—grew from real pain points experienced by office workers on a regular basis, as validated by research.

Beginning with industrial design and extending throughout the user experience design, the HP LaserJet Flow MFP re-defines the walk-up scan experience, incorporating premium scan hardware and a full physical keyboard with an on-screen interactive experience that includes favorites & recents, document markup with redaction and digital signature, and Android-based work path apps for industry-specific workflow integration. Testing shows this “One and Done” design solution can save heavy users as much as 4-5 hours a week in lost productivity.

Who were you designing for?

The HP Flow MFP targets office workers in legal, accounting, HR, and clerical, where scanning paperwork is a frequent yet inefficient part of work. Secondary users include general office workers. Oftentimes, these workers rely on a high-power scanner on the Multi-Functional Printer (MFP) in the shared use area.

Marketed as “office centers” or “business hubs,” these MFPs are sold on the promise of amazing automation. However, ease-of-use has been lacking, the powerful productivity features shrouded behind complicated menus. Instead of high-tech workhorses, many users consider these machines dinosaurs. The productivity gains are thus unrealized, resulting in an area of desperate pain.

What was the impact?

The HP LaserJet Flow MFP is HP’s most important product launch in commercial print in years. It is available for both direct purchase and a monthly lease. The product first launched in August 2022, with limited distribution in North America before going worldwide. Initial signs indicate a sales success, with all units sold out as demand outstrips supply.

The biggest direct impact of this solution is the lifestyle improvement and reduction of stress on front-line clerical workers. With users reporting this could save them 45 minutes a day or even 4-5 hours a week. Ecologically, digital markup and signature reduces wasted paper. Users no longer need to copy their original to mark up and send to clients to avoid damaging the original.

Describe the design process applied to the project.

Design, Marketing and R&D collaborated closely on this project, cross-pollenating UX insight from 50+ hours of ethnographies on clerical workers with quantitative research data from Competitive Market Intelligence and what IT buyers were asking for in the Customer Briefing Center.

From this, the team ran 2 iterations of resonance testing: “Fail Fast, Learn Fast.” The first prototype was built in 2 weeks. While the design was a bust, it unveiled important gaps in conceptual thinking. This paved the way for the round 2 prototype, which elicited the strongest end user emotional resonance ever in HP printer history!

The project then moved to usability testing, validating the detail design delivered to development fulfilled intent.