Helping users form an effective mental model of the system: what different devices do, and how they are interconnected. When is it appropriate to explain the system model – how things actually work – and when to simplify so they don’t need to concern themselves with technical details? Effective composition: distributing functionality between devices, to suit the capabilities of the devices and context of use. Appropriate consistency: how to determine which elements of the design should (and should not) be consistent across different interfaces, considering e.g. terminology, platform conventions, aesthetic styling and interaction architecture. Continuity: how patterns of connectivity unique to IoT can cause discontinuities in the UX between devices, and how to handle these in the design.

1. FLUPA 2017
What’s different about UX
for IoT?
Claire Rowland
@clurr
with thanks to Helen Le Voi /@hlevoi and Martin Charlier /@marcharlier
Image: Jacopo Werther

2. •Product/UX strategy consultant
•Specialising in IoT, particularly
connected home/energy
management
•Lead author of Designing
Connected Products
Bonjour!

3. 3 copies for best tweets
and questions ->
@flupa @clurr #uxdays17

4. Who here:
• Works on software products/services?
• Works on products/services with a physical/hardware component?
• Owns some connected products or uses them in everyday life?
• Would like to work on connected products?

5. My grandfather could probably have told you how many electric
motors he owned.There was one in the car, one in the fridge, one in
his drill and so on.
My father, when I was a child, might have struggled to list all the motors
he owned (how many, exactly, are in a car?) but could have told you
how many devices were in the house that had a chip in.
Today, I have no idea how many devices I own with a chip, but I could
tell you how many have a network connection. And I doubt my
children will know that, in their turn.
Benedict Evans
http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/5/26/the-internet-of-things

6. 33billion
Devices will be connected by 2020
Ref: Strategy Analytics

7. Images:Withings, Made by Many, ecobee, Pod, Philips, Streetline, Evrythng/Diageo, Lockitron, Proteus,Thington, Brita, Hi-Park
Consumer

8. Images: Emmett Tullos, Bigbelly, Smart Structures,Wikicommons, PowerOasis, OnFarm, GROUND Lab, Nomi, Helium,
[replace]
Industrial

9. 9
Embedded devices that
connect to the Internet
…but also a bunch of
things that are only
indirectly connected to
the Internet…
…and some things
which are only locally
connected to other
things
Connected products? IoT? Industry 4.0?

10. You don’t have to be a hardware
engineer or industrial designer to work
in connected products
Images: Nixdorf, Seymourpowell

11. Software is a big
part of connected
products Your energy consumption is
20% higher than this time last
year, because it’s colder
The lamp turned on at
8pm
You left your oven on
when you went out. Do
you want to turn it off?
There’s smoke in your
house!
There’s an intruder! I’m
turning the camera on
Your solar panels are
generating 4kW
Your fridge is
developing a fault
I see you’re coming
home. Shall I set the
temperature to 21C?

12. Thanks to British Gas
There are an
increasing number
of opportunities to
work with software
and services
enabled by
connected
hardware

13. But…
there’s a bunch of stuff that’s different
about working with hardware-enabled
services

14. http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/heck-internet-things-dont-yet/
Shiny visions of the future…

15. …but the reality is often new ways to fail
‘It’s a bit glitchy but it’s OK, you just have to be in
the room at the same time’. Actual review of the Wink hub

16. Images: Owlet,August, InTouch, Tesla
…and “a bit glitchy” could have very serious consequences

17. When we talk about design for IoT…
We tend to focus on industrial and UI design

18. Designing the parts separately won’t result
in a great experience
Designers need to create a coherent UX for
the whole system
Cross-Platform Service User Experience:A Field Study and an Initial Framework. Minna Wäljas, Katarina Segerståhl, & colleagues, MobileHCI’10:
http://bugi.oulu.fi/~ksegerst/publications/p219-waljas.pdf

19. Facets of connected product UX
Screen layout. Look and feel
Most
visible
Least
visible
Conceptual model
How should users think about the
system?
Interusability
Interactions spanning multiple
devices with different capabilities
UI/visual design
Platform design
Technology enablers spanning
products/services
Industrial design
Physical hardware: capabilities and
form factor
Interaction design
Architecture and behaviours per
service, per device
Service design
Holistic experience across digital and
non-digital touchpoints
Productisation
Audience, proposition, objectives,
functionality of a specific service

20. Facets of connected product UX
Screen layout. Look and feel
Most
visible
Least
visible
Conceptual model
How should users think about the
system?
Interusability
Interactions spanning multiple
devices with different capabilities
UI/visual design
Platform design
Technology enablers spanning
products/services
Industrial design
Physical hardware: capabilities and
form factor
Interaction design
Architecture and behaviours per
service, per device
Service design
Holistic experience across digital and
non-digital touchpoints
Productisation
Audience, proposition, objectives,
functionality of a specific service

21. Conceptual models

22. How do things connect?
Apparently similar products can work in different ways
Internet
Local WiFi

23. Which code runs where?
When parts
of the system
things lose
connectivity
or power,
what stops
working?
It depends on
the system
model
Product images: Philips

24. Interusability
Wäljas, M., Segerståhl, K., Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, K., Oinas-Kukkonen, H., (2010). Cross-Platform Service User Experience: A Field Study and an Initial
Framework. Mobile HCI 2010.

25. Composition: which bit does what?
Distributing user-facing functionality across devices
(Nearly) all interactions via phone app Interactions mirrored on phone and thermostat
Image:Tado Image: ecobee

26. Key actions on
the device…
… the same
actions, but more
control and
additional
features, in app.

27. ..or a special set of
features offloaded to
the app so as not to
get in the way of the
main experience

28. Appropriate consistency across UIs?
Terminology is the
most basic
example.
However different
the UIs, identical
functions must
have the same
name
Images: British Gas

29. How can devices/UIs feel like a family?
Images: Nest
“Click”
Nest use visual and audio cues to tie the thermostat and
phone app together

30. At an absolute minimum:
Images: British Gas
Identical
functions
must have
the same
name

31. We don’t (yet) expect
Things to behave like
the Internet
The average consumer is going to
find it very strange when objects
take time to respond, or lose
instructions
Image: Nissim Farim

32. Latency and reliability: delays and glitches
[Video: Philips Hue over local WiFi
vs 4G connection]

33. 90 second delay
Intermittent
connectivity
Images: British Gas
Sometimes parts of
the system take time
to connect and sync

34. Intermittent
connectivity
(and latency)
[Video: British Gas Hive heating
controller]

35. Delays and
glitches can
undermine the
value of the
product
…………………………..
“Oh, never mind”
[ding dong]
Nicolas Calderone via macsources.com

36. We can no longer
sustain
the illusion of
direct
manipulation

37. We can’t always create seamless user
experiences in IoT
We need to handle delays and
uncertainties gracefully (continuity)

38. Option 1: The
optimistic
white lie
Pretend it’s worked.
Backpedal if it goes wrong.

39. Instagram does
this
The photo is already shown
as ‘liked’, even though the
phone OS tells us that the
instruction is still being sent

40. Let me think about that…
…nope
Images: Philips
So does Philips Hue
Pretend it’s worked.
Backpedal if it goes wrong.

41. Variant: Acknowledge and hope
“Alexa, turn the living room
lights off”
Did it work?
“OK!” “OK!”
Yes No

42. Option 2: Be truthful and transparent

43. Some people really spell it out
Images: Lowes

44. Safety critical/urgent
Messages must get through quickly
Always communicate what’s actually
happening
Low touch/non-critical
OK if data or instructions take time to
get through
User can assume it’s working until
notified of a problem
The ‘right’ approach depends on context
Images: MyLively, Efergy

45. Data: fuzzy and timely or precise but old?
[Flossie: is here!
[11.32]
Mr Pickles was here at 15.02
Mr Pickles is around here now

46. It’s about interconnections,
and the experience of the
system
Images: MyLively, Efergy

47. Your system… and other systems
Which other products and
services work with yours?
What other ways to interact
(and potential glitches) does
that introduce?
How do users manage the
complexity of many
interconnected products and
services?

48. Tesler’s law of the conservation of
complexity:
As you make the user
interaction simpler you
make things more
complicated for the
designer or engineer
LarryTesler, formerVP of Apple

49. Merci!
Questions?
@clurr | claire@clairerowland.com
www.designingconnectedproducts.com
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