Very few IoT products have jumped the gap to the mass consumer market. Could some of the problems lie in the overall user experience? In this talk from IoT14, Claire Rowland looks at some of the UX factors that are unique to IoT and considers how to make IoT products that just work for consumers.

1. Getting the IoT into Tesco
or: IoT user experience for the mass market
Tesco Toton by Roger
Claire Rowland/@clurr
BLN Internet of Things 2014
Monday, 14 April 14

2. Hello :)
- Independent UX and product
consultant
- O’Reilly author: “UX design for the
consumer internet of things” (due end
2014)
Previously :
- Service design manager for AlertMe
- Head of research at Fjord
- Smarcos: EU consortium researching
interusability of interconnected
embedded devices
Monday, 14 April 14

3. photo by david ward photo by nickpo
photo photo by lyzadanger by steven de polo
Consumers are a very challenging
audience for IoT
Monday, 14 April 14

4. Mass market
products
should
- Solve a real problem
people have (value)
- Offer a good solution
(desirable, usable)
- Come at a cost
(financial, effort) that
feels in proportion to the
value
Monday, 14 April 14

5. UX for IoT is not
just UI and
industrial design
UI/visual design
screen layout, look and feel
Interaction design
architecture and behaviours per
service, per device
Interusability
interactions spanning multiple
devices with different capabilities
Industrial design
physical hardware: capabilities
and form factor
Service design
customer lifecycle, customer services,
integration with non digital touchpoints
Conceptual model
How should users think about the
system?
Productisation
audience, proposition, objectives,
functionality of a specific service
Platform design
discovery, control and coordination for
interconnected devices and services
Many different layers of
design shape the end user
experience
Monday, 14 April 14

6. UX for IoT is different...
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.
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7. 3 key guidelines for
successful consumer IoT
products:
-Solve a tangible problem
-Keep the conceptual model simple
-Make distributed interactions feel
coherent
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8. Solve a tangible problem
What does it do? Why would I want it?
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9. Product Tool
In areas where they don’t have expert knowledge or are short on time
consumers need products, not tools
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10. Nest do productisation really well
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11. Belkin’s mobile app is good, but
a connected socket is a tool that requires
users to solve their own problems
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12. This, though, is a great idea
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13. Simple conceptual model
The user’s understanding of how it works, and
what it can do
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14. Conceptual models should be simple
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15. Connectedness requires users to
think about system models
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16. Beware the
surprise package
Taking a successful mass
market product and making it
back into an early adopter
product
Scott Jenson, ‘The Simplicity Shift’
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17. You can try to
explain the system
model...
BERG Cloud bridge: transparent network comms
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18. ...but users
shouldn’t have to
understand
exactly how a
complex system
works in order to
be able to use it
successfully
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19. Coherence across
distributed interactions
Interusability: distributed UX
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20. Composition
Distribute functionality to suit the context of use
vs
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21. Consistency
Create device-appropriate interfaces that feel like a family
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22. Continuity
Create fluent cross platform interactions... BERG Cloudwash prototype
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23. ...ensure data is up to date on all platforms if possible
19
2 min delay
21
Constrained devices often suffer
discontinuities
iphone by daniel, cloud by edward boatman, router by joe harrison, thermometer by ashley reinke, radiator and boiler by axeny virtinsky
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24. A final thought
Good consumer UX for IoT
is deceptively hard
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25. 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
Larry Tesler, former VP of Apple
Monday, 14 April 14

26. Thank you
@clurr
claire@clairerowland.com
Monday, 14 April 14