The shower is many things to many people. For some, it's their own personal Lincoln Center, with an audience of one (perhaps two if you count the cat). For others, it's a day spa, even if that "day" lasts only as long as it takes to lather up, rinse off, and towel down. But we all pretty much seek the same experience: a chance to get clean, to wake up a bit, and maybe massage a sore neck or shoulder - all without sustaining life-threatening injuries.

Trouble is, most showerheads don't do much to help us reach our goal. Their slippery dials are hard to adjust; the water either pelts you painfully or dribbles on you weakly; and that soothing flow never seems to hit just the right spot in just the right way.

Plumbing product maker Moen had long suspected that the showerhead market was an area of opportunity. But while the North Olmsted, Ohio company knew a lot about what a plumber was looking for in a fixture, it needed to increase its understanding of consumer behavior in order to seize that opportunity. "We were looking for the big idea but we felt that our discovery had to go back to basics," says Jack Suvak, Moen's director, marketing research. "We wanted to get a better understanding of consumers' motivations in use of the shower. To start with, we had to understand behavior. Because the obvious isn't always apparent. And a lot of the aspects of things that are really most important to us tend to be hidden because they are either simple or too familiar to us. So we wanted to spend a little more time at discovery, taking time to look at the same things most people see or do but think about them in a different way."

Moen conducted depth interviews, in-aisle research, and even interviewed hydrotherapists to understand the beneficial effects of water on the body. But some of the most interesting findings came from ethnographic research in which consumers were observed showering in their own homes...