Smart home for your mom DESIGNING CONNECTED PRODUCTS FOR THE MESSY REALITY OF OUR LIVES KEVIN CANNON @MULTIKEV

Kevin Cannon Interaction designer at frog design @multikev 2

KEVIN CANNON

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“Not the worst use for the Internet of Things — but probably not the best, either.” — THE VE RGE 🤔

“Only one product line. Not many features. And a blueprint for every smart home company out there.” — WI RE D MAGA ZI NE 😍

  1. Why smart home isn’t mainstream 2. Why it’s hard to design for 3. What it will take to make it mainstream

Smart home isn’t mainstream

2 reasons 1. Not solving real problems 2. Not delivering on it’s promise

PROBLEMS PEOPLE HAVE IN THEIR LIVES PROBLEMS SMART HOME ACTUALLY SOLVE

http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/meet-smalt-the-ridiculous-smart-salt-shaker-that-has-mood-lighting-and-streams-music/

  1. Not delivering on it’s promise

https://www.amazon.com/forum/-/Tx248MWBWL2743Q/ref=ask_ql_ql_al_hza?asin=B01J24C0TI

We’ve been here before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny8-G8EoWOw

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“We don’t expect internet-like glitches from the real world.” — CLAIRE ROWLAND https://uxmag.com/articles/whats-different-about-user-experience-design-for-the-internet-of-things

How can you approach things differently?

Regular light Smart light • G ET UP • F LI CK SW ITC H • SI T D OW N • • • • • • • FIND PH O NE U NLO C K P HO NE FIND AP P O P EN APP NAV IGAT E TO L IGH T T U RN L IGH T O N PU T P HO NE AWAY

“Feature-free as they may be, most conventional home products just work” — GIZMODO https://gizmodo.com/why-is-my-smart-home-so-fucking-dumb-1684949715

Our competition is not other smart lighting products, our competition is the normal light bulb.

Technology down Home up

Smart home without the smartphone

TEMPERATURE BRIGHTNESS

Design for the whole family PURCHASER INSTAL LER US ER

Design for the whole family

What makes it hard to design for?

  1. The technology is fundamentally different

Typical Tech IOT Tech FAST CPU MEMORY ALWAYS ON ALWAYS CO NN ECT ED RESPO NSI VE SLOW CPU LI TTLE MEM ORY BATTERY SOM ETI MES CONNECT ED HI GH LATENCY

APP DATABASE

BULB REMOTE APP GATEWAY BULB

https://www.oreilly.com/learning/whats-different-about-user-experience-design-for-the-internet-of-things

Technology is our material

  1. Data is not reliable

ACTI ON REACTION THIRD STATE

Approach A: Block until action is completed SENDING COMMAND, PLEASE WAIT.

Approach B: Show status until action is completed

Approach C: Assume everything is ok (and fix it later if not)

  1. You can’t rely on existing patterns

What will it take to become mainstream?

Consider the total value proposition.

Consider the total value proposition.

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Smart home

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What we tried to do

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  1. Find value and maximise it

  1. Focus on taking the pain out of the product

  1. We need to get better at designing complex systems

@MULTIKEV Thank you.