Bringing life to the center of smart homes

Zofi: An Internet of Things Hub

Our Process

To approach this problem, we employed an iterative, human-centered design process. We cycled through divergent and convergent exercises with our goal to deeply understand the problem and to explore many options for the solution. We did not want to create just another app. We wanted to design a solution that would truly serve people's needs. The four major steps to our process were: Discover, Synthesize, Generate, and Refine.

Discover

This phase is where we sought to gather as much information as we could about the problem, the people, and the opportunity. We did this through a competitive analysis, secondary research, and primary qualitative research via a survey.

Competitive Analysis

In order to get a sense of the landscape, and the products that were already on the market or were in development, we reviewed mainstream tech news sources such as Mashable, Fortune, AppleInsider, and Tech Insider. Additionally, we analyzed Kickstarter projects in the smart home field, both those that were successfully funded and those that failed to receive funding. From this research we outlined some of the major trends to keep in mind so that we could design a differentiated and novel experience:

• All of the big technology players - Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung - are investigating ways to enter the smart home / home automation market.
• Current home automation products use a variety of interaction models including voice recognition technology, proximity technology, gesture control, and tactile button control.
• Some use just one of these technologies while others use several.
• There is a reliance on WiFi and bluetooth connectivity.
• Many current and proposed products still rely on a smartphone as the main setup and control center.
• There are three main categories of product concept: a button (or box) that connects smart devices that speak different ‘languages’, ‘smart’ plugs that allow control of previously unconnected devices or objects, and wearables that control smart objects via gestures.
• Products tend to be marketed to young professionals with a certain level of tech savviness (Nuimo, Ring, Airfy Beacon).
• In several cases, the target market and use was not clearly defined (xRemote, B.One, Domus, The Stack Box).

Secondary Research

Our goal to use emerging technology, rather than creating just another app, meant that we needed to get up-to-speed about the possibilities and limitations of those emerging technologies. We reviewed and culled insights from academic and peer-reviewed journals such as Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, MultiMedia Modeling, Ubiquitous Computing, International Journal of Design, Journal of Family Psychology, and Proceedings of the 7th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems among others. We learned about ambient displays, ubiquitous computing, contextual awareness, affective design, and proxemic interaction, all of which would influence our final design.

Survey

The last activity of our Discover phase was the creation of a survey. We wanted to understand the pain points and priorities that people had in their homes, their current use of smart devices, and the decision-making behind why they did or didn’t already use smart devices at home. Selected results from the survey are illustrated below. 

Overall, the key takeaways that we learned were:

• People view ‘chores’ such as cleaning as ‘obstacles’ that need to get done before they are able to relax at home.
• People value easy interactions with technology and unique personal objects.
• People prefer something portable, and for renters, something impermanent.

Synthesize

After gathering all of these different types of information we began our Synthesize phase to determine our area of focus and to define the characteristics our solution needed to have in order to be successful. We created personas and scenarios, performed a task analysis, and established design criteria.

Persona

Learning from the research, we created two typical personas: one, named Alice, tends to embrace technology more willingly than the other, named Dan, who primarily likes to enjoy technology. Our focus was to design our solution principally for Alice, but we attempted to make it as simple to use as possible, so that Dan would want to use it, too.

Scenario

We created four scenarios to explore, on an elevated level, how the solution could best serve the needs of a persona. They were: Have a Good Day, Welcome Back Home, Restful Sleep, and Wakeful Morning. Out of our four scenarios, we focused on the Wakeful Morning scenario:

The alarm blaringly jerks Alice awake. She gets up and squints her eyes trying to get used to the bright light in the bathroom. Going through her internal checklist she thinks about all the things she needs to take care of before leaving the house and the important business meeting she has this morning. She rushes around to get it all done and envies Dan, who turns over to sleep for another 30 minutes.

Task Analysis

We decided that the key task of our solution should carry out household chores or life routines that take place at home. From our research, we established three main criteria to support the key task. The solution should:

• Work In a flexible manner, since routines are not static. Their priorities, and the person who carries them out, change often
• Enable getting into a good mood and being open to a positive state or experience of ‘flow’
• Respect other family members and their routines

System-wise, this lead to the following general task chain:

Design Criteria

To inspire and guide the development of our solution we created a design point of view and established design criteria for the context, interactions, and the form factor.  

Design Point of View: We used a madlib to create a design point of view (POV) that would be an actionable problem statement to serve as a launching point for idea generation. The madlib structure that we used was: [USER] needs to [USERS's NEED] because [SURPRISING INSIGHT]. After a brainstorming session and several iterations, we settled on the following POV:

Busy family members need to minimize their focus on household routines and feel empowered in their lives through connected and harmonious interactions because they want to enjoy quality time alone or with others in a home that feels warm and comfortable.

Contextual Design Criteria: Our research had revealed important aspects about the context where our solution would be used. We needed to keep in mind that:

• Usefulness needs to outweigh technical efforts of implementation and daily use
• Device is used informally
• No great need for privacy when using the device within the home
• Device and users communicate and interact differently in different contexts, e.g. morning vs. evening, weekdays vs. weekends, workdays vs. holidays, being alone vs. all family members at home vs. having guests
• Inside the home, the atmosphere changes a lot from quiet to noisy and hectic, depending on the time of day and the composition of family members

Interaction Design Criteria: Since saving time, aesthetics, and ease-of-use were important to our persona, we established several criteria to guide the development of the interaction design. 

• Simple to understand
• Simple to use, especially during the setup
• Provide warm interactions to build comfort
• Give the user a sense of control
• Contribute to the perception of the solution as a valuable object

Form Factor Criteria: Lastly, in addition to interactions, the form factor had to support the requirements of the persona as well. Therefore, we established the following criteria:

• Reinforces a fun and warm atmosphere
• Integrates moods or emotions
• Constitutes a treasured object that is handcrafted, unique, connected to memory, evocative of personal design taste
• Is not too cute, childish, or gender-specific
• High quality in terms of its material and long-long lasting in terms of construction
• Emanates seriousness & evokes trust
• Resembles a simplistic shape
• Channels attention
• Supports portability, but might be stationary in some cases

Generate

Next, we moved on to the Generate phase. Our goal during this phase was to brainstorm a pool of potential solutions, focusing on quantity in order to explore many options before settling on a single solution. We conducted numerous brainstorming sessions and exercises and looked to similar as well as orthogonal concepts, mental models, areas of study, and current practices in order to inspire ideas. We explored the idea of ‘flow’, the concept of routines vs. rituals, and options for form factors to name a few.

Each team member contributed sketches and participated in brainstorming activities. We explored form factors including a wearable, a round command center button, blocks, and even the absence of a physical form factor. Many interaction possibilities were examined including voice, gestural, and touch. The following are a selection of my sketches and ideas from throughout the ideation sessions. 

As our ideas progressed, we also drew storyboards to get a sense of the full cycle of use of one particular design solution. Here is a storyboard I drew of the concept named "Flowy."

Refine

Over the course of the project, we presented sketches and concepts to our class for feedback. These critique sessions as well as our own group critique sessions guided us to refine our ideas. From the plethora of ideas and sketches we culled the ones that offered the most value and that would best fit our criteria listed above. This led to our final product, named Zofi.

Zofi is a fun, warm, treasured block, which focuses on “flow” and simplifying users’ routines in a unique and interesting form factor. By integrating the abilities and settings of many different smart devices in one place, Zofi takes the programming of a traditional smart home out of the user’s hands. This ‘set it and forget it’ approach improves with time, using the latest proxemic and contextual Internet of Things technology and machine learning algorithms in the background, so that users can enjoy their home and family in the foreground. 

The final presentation, below, illustrates the prototype of Zofi.

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