Ello was a 8-month long project that I did with Lars Kaltenbach (Interaction Designer) and Paul Darcy (Senior Researcher) for Eran Industrial - a Florida, USA based company that specializes in designing, engineering, manufacturing, and distributing lighting fixtures all across the globe.
Eran Industrial had a plan to launch multiple smart products like fans, HVAC vents, thermostats, security cameras and doorbells to compete in the smart home market.
The goal was to build an IOT system that was not just capable of controlling smart devices with the help of apps and voice assistants but that would also extract data from these smart devices and present it to the users in the most meaningful way.
As an Interaction Designer, my key resposibility was to explore and conceptualise how we could make the smart home experience of the future delightful and insightful for the people; leveraging the technological capabilities of Internet of Things (IoT), Computer Vision (CV) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Core innovations and new AI capabilities being developed at Eran Industrial aimed to unlock opportunities in the smart home space followed by access to smart neighbourhoods and smart cities.
The research team at Ello believed that there was an opportunity to be different and better than the rest of the market in the smart home products. This was based around granting the user access to their own data in such a way that allows them to simply extract and use meaningful insight into their lives.
This became our starting point for the project. Some of the key questions that needed to be answered were:
Before diving deep into our own user research we did a detailed competitor analysis to understand the smart home space better. We studied competitors like Ecobee, Smarthings, Homey, Google Home, Apple Home, Tuya, Mi Home, MirAle, Honeywell and Alexa in depth.
We found that truly none of these competitors at the time were offering data to users in any meaningful way. There was an opportunity for Ello to be different in the market if it could offer insights in format that people desired.
The primary research objective was to validate the assumption that the users were ready to take advantage of the advanced capabilities of the smart home devices i.e beyond mere control and basic automation and in the territory of pattern recognition, and personalised insights.
Multiple experiments were designed that included Lo-fi paper prototypes, card-sorting exercises, co-creating using simple sketches, usability testing using high-fidelity prototypes, advertisements videos and walkthroughs using wireframes to glean what insights were most useful for people, what format of data was meaningful and how would all of it get packaged as an experience that resonated and wasn’t far from the mental model that people had around smart home systems.
User research helped us identify three user segments viz. a Naïve Buyer, a New Smart User and a Mature User. The needs and desires of each of these groups was unique and in order for Ello to be successful in the market it needed to cater to them all in a way that the experience doesn’t become distracting for the other user segments.
This is someone who are yet to start their journey into the smart home world. They buy a smart product almost by accident. What we might regard as ‘quirky’ features or ‘hooks’ are incredibly significant for this user segment.
This is someone who is in the market for a smart device or multiple devices for the first time. Their mind is focussed on the task they need to perform, for example, keep my family safe or reduce my energy bill. When considering what smart camera or system to buy, tangible manifestations of our ‘insight’ capability will stand out, features and benefits like;
The mature smart user is experienced and knowledgeable. They have experiences with other systems and values customisation. This is a group that has already been using smart devices for some time and is in the market for an upgrade.
People hate being bombarded with alerts and notifications every now and then especially if it isn’t of grave importance. Urgent information is okay but everything else bothers them. However, if people expect to receive a notification at a certain time it's okay to send less urgent information.
Takeaway: Every notification has its time and place dictated by the level of urgency. If urgent, send it immediately but if not send it a time when people have learnt to expect it. e.g. Fun Fact Friday.
If we inform people of a deviation in their patterns we have to be very careful about creating urgency. 'Your daughter is being kidnapped right now' is something else than 'Is Mary home? Ello didn't see her coming in. Alert me next time again. yes/no'.
Takeaway: Don't make assumptions, provide suggestions. Don’t force conclusions, ask questions.
Surprisingly people expect the app to tell them about additional products that might add value. Intelligent and practical suggestions ('looks like you have a second entrance, get an additional camera') were way better perceived than random suggestions.
Takeaway: Provide contextual suggestions for additional products. Always explain the ‘why’ behind the recommendation.
People innately don't trust the ability of artificial systems to differentiate between important and unimportant events. High impact features should not get triggered automatically rather brought to the immediate attention of the user before triggering.
Takeaway: Provide people an active choice before enabling a feature. People should always have the option to disable a feature.
Ello data screen can get quite complex and intimidating with multiple data streams. The dark theme allowed all of those options to sit in the background and not appear as intimidating, while shifting the focus to the main content area. In addition, Use of multiple colours on light 3D renders looks very chaotic visually. The dark mode makes the screen visually pleasing as compared to lighter version when UI elements involve multiple colours.
All the final screens were stitched together to create a high-fidelity prototype along with novel interactions like dragging data streams and switching between portrait vs. landscape camera view.
In addition, all the key flows like setting up a new device, setting up an automation, have also been baked into the prototype.
To communicate our findings and recommendation succinctly to the client we made a detailed demo video. This got shared with the entire management team at the Eran Industrial (It includes the ads we created to test value proposition with the users during our primary research sessions).
Provided strategic vision and design direction, enabling the broader team to secure leadership buy-in for Ello.
Conceptualized a novel smart home solution, validated through 50+ hours of user research.
