My Role
UX/UI Designer

Website
https://goo.gl/uMFNLq

Overview

Have you ever attempted to automate your home using smart services offered by Apple, Google or Amazon? As a recent adapter to the smart home movement, I was faced with the daunting task of attempting to get my apartment setup to be well…smarter. It really is a lot of work if you’re looking to fully automate your home, with a lot of factors in play. Who can I use? What services do they offer? What products work with what platform? What technological considerations about my apartment do I need to make?

After researching for the best solutions, I was shocked to find that Google, a leader in the home automation movement, doesn’t have a lot of information that would help me get to where they as a company would want me to be.

I felt this would make a great opportunity to flex my UX and UI muscles to come up with a solution to a problem that I had encountered in the real world.

The Goal

The goal of this project is simple - act as if I was working for Google and attempting to increase sales and adoption to the Google Connected Home ecosystem. We want users to increase their understanding of smart home products, and ultimately work with the user to integrate Google Connected Home products into their day-to-day lives improving brand visibility and loyalty to the platform.

The Challenges

This project presented several challenges, even just from a basic understanding and personal experience with the problem. When beginning my research, I started by asking myself a few simple questions:

1. What kind of solutions are offered in the market today that help people automate their homes?

2. Why hasn’t Google, a company with near unlimited resources, tackled a problem like this?

3. What are the pain-points in engaging in home automation?

4. What are ways I can reach the audience in a simple and engaging way that will allow them to use Google as their main source for home automation?

Understanding

I started by both scouring sources online and speaking with real users at various levels of automation. I wanted to better understand what new adapters are actually looking for. Is it just convenience? Is it the financial benefits it can have on your home electricity bill? Is it just the gimmick of home automation that intrigues people?

I interviewed two separate coworkers at various stages of home automation (one having a fully automated 3 storey home with Apple, and the other at the beginning stages, having shown interest after having heard about my recent purchases, but hadn’t taken any steps towards home automation yet).

I reviewed several websites and forums trying to get into the mind of an adapter without bringing in my personal biases for these platforms to better deliver a solid finished product.

After a base understanding was in mind, I completed a Google Form Survey (I swear I’m not a Google shill!) to gather feedback from users, posted on a few subreddit pages, as well as pushed to friends/family on Facebook with the understanding it’s based on home automation. These questions were based on previous research findings free from any cognitive biased language.

Findings

Through my researching, I gathered data about the users from an empathy map to better organize the thoughts and feelings that people go through while trying to explore and use these products.

I found that users investing time to research Smart Home (like me) were overwhelmed with the options available. Just standing in the light bulb aisle of department store, I overheard a customer asking about linking the light with her phone, and the sales person couldn’t answer the question, because it was a third-party product separate from the Google/Apple/Amazon brand (Geeni). After the sales person left, this user stared at the wall of products and eventually left without a purchase.

Users also want the benefits from both a financial and ease-of-use that home automation offers and often weigh the pros/cons of these solutions, pros being ability to monitor their family, play music anywhere in their home, home security options, and the impact these smart features can have on their electric bills.

To answer the question of “Why hasn’t Google done this?”, I think the answer comes from evaluating the products they sell on their existing storefront. Currently, they only offer Google made products. This obviously makes sense from a business perspective - why would you want to sell others products? Could it tarnish the brand if products aren’t up to snuff? Absolutely. The counter-point to that is making an experience for clients that builds loyalty around your product/solution. Getting users onto the ecosystem means they’re much more accustomed to how these products work together, and decreases customers desire to seek solutions elsewhere.

After this research phase, I took all the information I could, and summarized it into one persona for the target audience of this design.

UX Exploration

While getting into the design phase, I reviewed Google’s home product platforms, and their store. I took in as much as I could regarding brand their specific brand standards, buttons, process flows, grids, typography, colours - everything needed to evaluate as if this product could roll out onto their platform.

As an avid user of Google products (again…not a shill!), this was a great way to engrain myself further into their brand understanding and have real-world perspectives driving my design to keep the solution in the clients wheelhouse.

This was a great first step in design. Reviewing all pages quickly and efficiently led me to find some solutions I wouldn’t have thought of without getting into the nitty-gritty part of designing for pixel-accuracy.

This high-level design also allowed me to compare with the existing design standards Google uses and pushes some even a bit further for this new interactive solution. We have a full flow from start to finish on how to actively engage curious clients becoming the owner of education on everything Smart Home.

This solution allows for a one-stop shop for everything a person could need to get setup. An education screen was added in order to take the guesswork out of what products their home could support, discussing specifics between home wiring, voltage allowance, what devices work with what ecosystem (iOS vs. Android) and answer the when/why of bulb vs. socket debate.

Having a flow where users can have their hand held solves for a users main frustration by not overwhelming them with information as they’re making some potentially big purchases.

Choosing between simple and detailed views are also an option. This allows for micro and macro insights into what customers are purchasing for themselves, and allowing the user to customize their solution based on room or total number of products they would want for their entire house. These quick selections allow for users to have find-ability of everything they’re selecting during this process.

From a business perspective, I believe Google would want to adopt a way to vet third-party products. A solution of adding a new brand tag on their store of “Google Home Approved Products” would solve this problem. Partners would be clearly outlined to be third-party produced, but simply approved by Google for sale on their storefront and further information available upon a “learn more” click on the product page. Not only does this draw a line on between Google products and third-party offerings, it will also allow third-party vendors something to work for, instead of an MVP approach that many product manufacturers seem to be going for. This would increase the quality of products being associated with the platform.

After moving into a more solid design environment in Sketch, I was able to confirm and refine my findings. I then rolled in typography of the brand to ensure the spacing and sizing was accurate, as well as bringing in other assets to push the design further and ensuring hierarchy was clear.

I further reviewed the content with one of my previously interviewed users, who stating the following:

This is a great start. I could honsetly [sic] see myself using this something like this if I was going to buy these products and had this available. I really like the idea of the page giving the overview and spec/tips so I don’t have to hunt around. I can get a high-level overview of the products.

This confirmed that users could see themselves using a product like this with little knowledge of how smart homes actually work and what products are offered.

As users are number one, I took all relevant feedback from a few other people I had sent this project to for review, both as consumers and other designer. I implemented the various small changes into the final visual designs.

Visual Design

Here I’ll go through each page of the design and give a brief overview of each design decision and solution.

Product Landing Page

Clients will be greeted with a landing page about the new tool. This will introduce the high-level details about what Connected Home is, and the offerings of the product. This will serve as the entry point for clients looking to explore products and new solutions that Google offers with Home products.

Video Overview

A simple lightbox solution for displaying a walkthrough of Connected Home options for users who want a little information without having to dive deeper, and navigation around the page.

Education

Core to the production solution, this page was designed around offering ease of access to information. Since my previous user test scored well in terms of offerings and functions, I decided to add details for each product and how they could interact with it in a very human way.

Google Home offers routines, and highlighting the details of customization of language shows unknown benefits to potential users. This is amplified with the macro of “Hey Google, set the mood.” with the follow-up function of dimming the bedroom lights.

For other products, the idea would be to showcase the product and the visual of Google Assistant being engaged with natural language in a way that sells the product to the client.

Setup Screen - Standard

In the first of two potential views, the standard home lets Google do the work on choosing what rooms a standard home would have. Everyone has a kitchen, dining space, living space, bedroom, and a bathroom. With a higher time commitment and with Google’s resources, we could determine the location based on the client and their demographics to take a best-guess at what type of home they live in.

The tool will allow for refinement and the ability to add and remove rooms based on this automated selection.

Setup Screen - Custom

Similar to the previous screen, this page was designed for a more seasoned user or users who would assume they have unique features of their home that need further customization. The Google Home app offers 19 different rooms or areas for your home so we’d want to match every offering from the app.

Giving the ability to immediately add and remove rooms, as well as renaming, this will become beneficial in the delivery phase. Room solutions will come boxed and bundled together to make setup in their home easy as possible. Simply bring the box to the room, and unpack. Instructions will be included.

Room View

Further expanding on the delivery, setting up by room allows you to review and choose all products that they could want for their space. Have a TV? Get a Chromecast. Want to listen to music? Add a Google Home Mini, and broadcast your music across your home with Home Group.

A custom progress bar is added to showcase how far through the setup they are. If a user abandons the flow, this will act as a placeholder for the next time they return to the site.

The page also takes advantage of showcasing what the product can do, with imagery and examples customized for the best guess of the room type.

Connected Home Package Review - By Product

Full home review by product allows a user to get a full review of all products they are going to purchase with the ability to change the quantity on the fly in case something was needed. Any changes would adapt with delivery packaging of “miscellaneous” if not determined by room.

Click-through progress bar would allow a user to jump back and go to a specific room, with the next button then allowing users to jump back to this review page.

Connected Home Package Review - By Room

Lastly, this page allows the user to review based entirely by the room. A drop-down navigation will allow a user to see all products purchased for a specific space, and allow the user to change the quantity/remove (if set to 0).

Finally, the last click would add all bundled solutions to the existing basket for the user to checkout.

Results

As with any project, it’s important to understand the findings of the design. We need to determine if the project was a success, if it could require another round of revisions or if it was a failure. Fortunately for me, I showed the final designs/mockups to those I had engaged (users and designers) and received positive feedback.

I believe the goal of the project was met. I think we now understand clearer how Google could attempt to gain more customers adopting to their home platform, and growing their user base and brand loyalty. It’s clear that becoming the leader on home products and educating users is something people are looking for. I believe expanding beyond their product catalogue and offering third-party vetted solutions could result in an increase of adoption in their ecosystem resulting in higher sales and pushing brand loyalty even further.

I would have loved to have more time/resources to ensure that full user testing could be done and get real concrete data around the delivered product. I also would've loved to have time to really showcase some micro-interactions and motion into a fleshed-out prototype. But maybe that’s for another day.

This was a great personal challenge to explore the Google brand and gain valuable insights. I feel like through this project, I have something in common with my home - we both got smarter.