FreshFold2026
FreshFold is a self-initiated product design concept for an online-first laundry service serving urban Indian households.
I designed the core mobile experience, defined the operating assumptions and built an interactive mobile prototype.
Contributions
Team
- Solo product designer
My role
- Designing screens
- Coding the mobile prototype
- User experience design
- Research
Challenge
Urban Indians use laundry services for a variety of reasons.
Sunny
Cannot invest in a washing machine
Cost-conscious customer
Rahul
Does not have time to manage weekly laundry
Time-constrained customer
Sneha
Owns duvets that require dry cleaning
Special-treatment customer
How might FreshFold give customers an end-to-end laundry service experience?
Competitive analysis
I audited 7 Indian laundry apps and found most offer a pickup-booking tool rather than an end-to-end service experience. Also, weak visual hierarchy made the available information harder to scan.
Hence we added estimating order total, selecting delivery date and order tracking as quality of life improvements within FreshFold.
Constraints and assumptions
I defined a set of business and operating assumptions that shaped the design of the experience.
Centralised processing
A central facility creates several hand-offs after pickup, so the experience needs to communicate when items are received, processed, packed and returned.
On-demand pickups
Gig workers enable pickups within 2 hours. Customers can schedule a pickup when riders are unavailable or outside operating hours.
4 core services
Limiting the initial offering to wash, wash and iron, iron, and dry clean keeps service selection understandable while covering common garment-care needs.
Problem 1
Customers may not always know which service a garment needs. The garment care label is the source of truth, but it can be missing or unclear. In those cases, FreshFold provides general guidance to help customers make a more informed choice.
Problem 2
Customers may struggle to distinguish between similar items, such as a sweater and a sweatshirt, or a dohar, comforter, and blanket. FreshFold groups related items and pairs them with clear descriptions and illustrations to make the choice easier.
Edge case 1
In the unlikely event that a customer cannot find an item, FreshFold lets them submit a suggestion for the support team to review and add when appropriate.
Edge case 2
Customers may prefer not to have their undergarments counted during pickup. FreshFold lets them add these items as weight buckets instead; all other items are selected by quantity.
Problem 3
Customers usually place high-volume laundry orders, typically around 10–15 items across different services, and may need to review item types and respective quantities before placing an order. To support this, FreshFold separates basket review from checkout.
Iterations
I explored multiple directions for the two most information-dense parts of the experience: selecting items and configuring checkout.
Prototype
The prototype covers the complete core ordering journey. It isn't a production application, so supporting user flows are out of scope.
Try adding items from multiple services and categories, comparing express and standard delivery, and continuing through order tracking.
Pricing strategy
The competitive audit showed two established pricing models:
Weight-based pricing
Ideal for optimising bulk item intake and improving wash load efficiency.
Per-item pricing
Offers greater control over unit economics, since different items require different levels of handling. For example, ironing a blazer is more labour-intensive than ironing a T-shirt.
Most apps used weight-based pricing for wash services and per-item pricing for ironing and dry cleaning.
I chose per-item pricing across all four services. This increases the amount of selection required upfront, but it allows customers to see the order amount before pickup and gives the rider an item count to verify.
Additional functionality
Customers can search for an individual item, such as a shirt, or for a specific category or use case, such as ethnic wear or office wear.
Safai Pass is a subscription service to encourage repeat orders for frequent customers. Customers can add the pass during checkout or manage it from a dedicated screen.
Learnings
- Always start by researching the problem statement. Organise the data and list the assumptions before moving into design.
- Iterate on designs and seek continuous feedback from mentors to improve visual design, user experience and the overall flow.
- Do not get attached to one solution too early. Evaluating the trade-offs of different approaches helped me make better design decisions.