Smart Home Mobile App

Project Details

Time Frame September 2017 - November 2017

Method and Skill Usability Testing | Brief Interviews

Tool(s) Sticky Notes | Notebook Sketching | Axure

Deliverable Clickable wireframe and Final Report

My Role

Design the app layout as well as the flow and interactions users will have with the app and conduct user interviews to get feedback about the pros and cons of the application.

User Persona

For the initial step, I had to think of a user who would like the application, because what is the point if you do not have a target audience? Some key takeaways from this particular persona is to create an app that is tailored for someone who may want an all in one security, lights and temp app who can remotely adjust their settings without disturbing the rest of the family and will be able to check on their family's well being and safety while away from home.

Demographic:

Name: Mark Smith

Age: 49

Work: Journalist

Location: Arizona

Archetype: Middle/Older Age Man with Family to Support

Goals:

Wishes to cover the latest stories, as a result, is often up at odd times of the night to find the latest story

Wants to have the most secure house when he is not able to be home for his family

Wishes for his eldest son to do well during freshman year of college, potential empty room in the future

Frustrations:

Has a bit of a hard time adjusting to all of the new technologies

Prefers a more colder weather than the rest of his family

Likes to work in the living room with all of the lights on even though the rest of the family does not like the lights on

Son often forgets to lock the backdoor

Bio: Mark Smith is a middle to older age man who works for the public newspaper and wishes the best for his family. He has a wife, a college age son and a high school age daughter. His son will be attending college in the upcoming year and the family is preparing for his departure. Mark is mainly focused on providing enough income to support his family as well as his son’s future education and although he is actively not pursuing a promotion, he believes he will receive one soon due to his significant contributions to his work. His work also causes him to be up at various times of the night to ensure that he will get the latest breaking news and have the opportunity to report on it first

Personality: Hard worker, Dad, Night Owl, Quite, Kind, Worrisome

Motivation: Protect Family, Be the Best Journalist, Support College Age Son,

Preferred Channels: Newspaper, digital news, television and ensuing ads, public radio

Storyboarding

I wanted to encapsulate the how different user would use my mobile app. Below are 3 different scenarios (sorry the pics are small, I don't have the physical originals anymore) that a certain user may take to reach their desired result as well as the original pain points and the solutions the app has to offer.

Older user who likes simple all in one interface with large fonts.

User 1 (Older user with less icons and larger font)

The Issue: Older user who complains there are too many screen swipes and taps to go to to get to the destination screen. Also says there font is too small and the wording can be convoluted.

The Solution: Large font and an emphasis on icon navigation with large buttons and top down task completion so no step is missed. Also, there will be most frequently used button sections so user does not have to hunt them down, cutting down the swipe and tap count to a minimum.

User 2 (A guest user with limited features in the app)

The Issue: A short time guest (In this case a weekend dogsitter) may be at the home of the main users and may want to adjust temperature, locks, etc, but cannot as the main users are away from home and they do not have access to the main application.

The Solution: Allow for a guest to access partial portions of the application with limited features so they are still able to make their stay comfortable while the main users are still able to monitor their main core features and override if need be.

Guest feature with limited access to app.

Personalized adjustment of temp, lighting and sound when entering a room

User 3 (Personalized adjustment of temp, lighting and sound when entering a room)

The Issue: Have you ever walked into a room only to find someone messed with "your" set volume on your electronics or the temperature of the house so it makes you uncomfortable? Fear no more

The Solution: Create a personalized auto customization of all the settings as soon as you walk into the room of your choice. It is smart and intuitive based off of the user profile of the person who walks in and can change when one user leaves and another enters. In this case Mark as his temp set to 70 degrees, lighting at 75% and music level at 10. When he leaves and his son enters, the home knows to adjust itself to 65 degrees, 60% light, and music level 15.

Wire Framing (From sketches to a lofi clickable prototype)

User Flow

Here is a picture of the user flow for the app, starting at the home screen and then flowing to the lighting feature, choosing the designated floor and room where you want to makes the changes, and turning on or off the lights or adjusting the brightness.

User flows using my mocked screens on sticky notes

Screen mockups for security access, arming a disarming locks, looking at the camera live feeds and looking at the energy break down screens. Mockups for the calendar and event/scheduling assistant.

Axure Lo-Fi Mockups

After sketching out the initial screens, I created clickable lo-fi mockups of the screens using Axure. Below are some sample screens, mainly focusing on the lighting status selection.

Screen to select the floor and bedroom lighting that you would like to adjust. Based on floor plan of actual house

Screen to adjust the lighting for bedroom 3, scroll wheel for variable light adjust or on/off for completely on or off

Master scheduler/calendar of all the events for the month, can be reoccurring or single day events

Focus Group

I had a couple of my friends as well as some people I personally did not know in the labs test out my lo-fi clickable mockup and give me their honest, candid feedback about what they liked about the app, what they didn't like and areas of improvement. Below are some of the captured sentiments.

Tasks

Turn on kitchen light

Thought the light on/off functionality could have been reduced to one step by just tapping the room to turn on/off the lights
Liked how house was partitioned by room as you can visually see where the lights are on/off
Need a confirmation change screen and a default landing page to go to after changing lights

dsfads

2. Set alarm for entire house

Wished there was a countdown for when the house will be completely armed to be displayed on the phone
Maybe have a backup of the passcode to be sent to a phone as a text or other outside resource or have another form of retrieving the security pass code in case the user forgets or times out

Analysis and Results

Pros:

Easy to login
Liked the by room format
Adjustable dimness was a plus for the lights, and music

Cons:

The calendar feature seemed too cramped on the screen
Possible conflicts created by the user and the scheduled event, did not have a way to handle that

Areas for Improvement:

How to prevent hacking into a users home in the future
Should there be a master user who can override any other persons action
Where are the stoppers to prevent the extremities (ex 10 degrees or 120 degrees in the house)
Need an initial walkthrough/prompts of how to use the app as some features were not intuitive on first use