the next clean experience

One of the techniques companies frequently use to measure how customers react to their products and their advertising is focus group studies. It's quite interesting what you can learn when you sit four or five people around a table and get them to talk about a vacuum cleaner. Which is exactly what we did before Vax was created, but with over 10 individual groups.

As you can imagine, comments and opinions varied quite a bit. There are people who insist on vacuuming every day just to keep the dirt at bay. Others complained about the cumbersome chore of lugging around their bulky vacuum - especially when the performance of that vacuum was poor in their opinion.

But once we compiled all the responses, two things remained constant. People want a vacuum that cleans deep, and they want a vacuum that's easier to use. And that became the basis for the NEXT CLEAN philosophy - creating user-friendly products that clean well.

Common complaints about vacuums are that they essentially work just fine but don't live up to their expectations. They didn't realize the HEPA filter needed to be replaced at regular intervals. Or they can't remove the dirt cup without the unnecessary step of unwinding the power cord from the hooks. Each of these issues contribute to an unsatisfied customer.

Since half of the NEXT CLEAN philosophy is to create a vacuum that is easier to use, we compiled a list of these common shortcomings for the design team to review. In turn, they were able to better understand what customers dislike about their existing vacuums and create a product that avoids some of these flaws. Vax not only cleans well, it's designed with customer needs in mind.

Next, Building the Vax...