Timeline:
4 weeks

My Role:
UX/UI designer from conception to delivery.

Team:
Individual Project

Software:
Figma, Adobe Photohop,
Adobe Illustrator

PROBLEM

How can we help smart home devices better understand our needs and anticipate our preferences?

An increasing number of households are utilizing smart technology to simplify life using automation features. But as we focus on making these automations fit our preferences, we should ask: Do these innovations truly improve our lives, or is there more to them that we haven't fully understood yet? This line of thought has led me to wonder whether the products on the market are actually "smart," effectively enhancing users' daily surroundings.

SOLUTION

By using health metrics.

Aligning user moods with home environment :

Creating a mood-centric homepage by enabling easy navigation and control based on individual mood.

Clear accessibility for modifying device settings and ensuring effortless customization aligned with user needs.

Smart health metric triggers:

Creating moods using personal data as triggers from smart devices for a regulated home atmosphere.

Use of health metrics triggers to program device settings for an enhanced the living space and a better lifestyle.

Anticipated enhanced living:

Real-time health data monitoring and analysis.

Rapid solutions for optimal living: Instant proposals to enhance the living environment based on analyzed health data.

SURVEY

The main impact of smart home devices on the participants was centred around daily convenience.

To initiate the project, I created a Google Forms survey to gather quantitative data on the demographic profile of individuals currently using home smart devices. The survey aimed to explore their daily frequency routines usage, the impact of smart devices on their lives, and the devices used to interact with the smart technology.

Occasionally

38%

Daily
62%

Convenience

52%

Security
16%

Energy Consumption 12%

Other
3%

Monitor their homes
17%

Laptop
5%

Tablet
14%

Phone
78%

Watch
3%

Current home app usage frequency

Smart home devices adoption reasons

Types of devices used for control

INTERVIEW

My interviewees expressed their desire for smart devices to comprehend their individual needs and enhance their home environment.

The objective of conducting interviews was to gain insights into how smart home devices effectively improve people's lifestyles, identify patterns of usage, as well as understand the challenges they encounter and the feature gaps in the devices.

"I wish it could just understand what I would like on and off, without me have to think about it"

Jennifer

"Having established favorite preferences would help me remember what works best for me."

Louis

“Sometimes turning on multiple devices from my app can be time-consuming.”

Kevin

MAIN INSIGHT

Smart devices should be able to intelligently suggest solutions, enhancing home comfort by understanding individual moods and preferences.

Based on the trends identified in the affinity map, I was able to identify three main pillars to achieve the objective of an enriched living experience that is truly smart and offers an enhanced user engagement.

Understanding human moods to enhance comfort:

Pre-set preferences for faster interactions:

Enhanced usability for all: ensuring accessibility

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS + GAP

The competitors lack a system that understands human moods and offers users choices for improving their daily routine.

While keeping the above findings in mind, I analyzed the four most popular apps surrounding the smart home space. I found that none of them had this aspect of analyzing human moods and patterns to help them enhance their living environment. This then became my opportunity for a proposed solution.

Automation Features

Manual Setup

Voice Assistant

Time Triggers

Geo-Fence Location

Personalized to Individual Moods

Real-Time Suggestions

IDEATION

Towards a truly smart living: Leveraging health metrics from smartwatches to understand human needs and emotions.

I embarked on a brainstorming journey to discover the most effective approach to comprehend and analyze the relationship between human needs and emotions, with the goal of creating an improved living environment.

By exploring medical studies in the national library of medicine, I deduced that our varying moods can be identified through health metrics collected by our smartwatches.

Leveraging this insight, the smart home system can utilize the natural health data from users' phones or watches to assess their moods to propose better ambiance alternatives and optimize their living environment, thereby achieving a truly smarter home system.

PAPER WIREFRAMES

My Paper wireframes.

USABILITY STUDY: TESTING AND IMPROVEMENTS

Three major improvements in my design

Usability studies offered valuable insights into the user's perspective while engaging with the app. The mockups of the initial design revealed a lack of emphasis on moods and health metrics. Based on the studies, three primary findings emerged, leading to evident modifications in the app.