My husband and I have both been working from home since March. We bought a new house in January and little did we realise we’d be getting to know it quite so well so soon. In more normal times, I work from The Dock on Hanover Quay where Fjord runs the design pillar of Accenture’s Global Innovation Hub. It’s a really cool building and, while I’m lucky that we’ve adapted well to working remotely, I do miss the buzz of physically interacting with the bright, talented and diverse bunch of people who work there.

As a Design Director for Fjord, I lead and guide design teams as they collaborate with developers, data analytics and researchers. Our goal is to effectively use emerging technologies to create and develop human-driven solutions for our clients. It’s an exciting space to work in and even after nearly 20 years in the industry, I still feel like I’m constantly learning.

I’ve always loved the intersection between design and technology. I started my Third level studies with a degree in Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin. However, although I enjoyed parts of it, I deferred after two years to take on a Diploma in Multimedia at a smaller college as I was yearning for a more design-orientated career. It was that diploma that led me to complete a BSc in Multimedia at Swansea University in Wales. I’m always grateful to my younger self that I had the courage to follow my gut. My final thesis in my BSc focused on the emergence of ‘persuasive technology’ and how its design can impact people and society both for good and bad. It feels apt that I’ve ended up working in a space where ‘conscientious innovation’ is at the heart of what I do.

Keeping it Human

As I reflect on my career to date, the projects I’ve most enjoyed are those where an understanding of human needs and behaviours is key. That we can harness our design skills to humanise technology and make it accessible and relevant to users across all spectrums of life is exciting and motivating.

One of my favourite writers, Marshall McLuhan, describes it perfectly in The Medium is the Massage: “All media are extensions of some human faculty — psychic or physical. The wheel is an extension of the foot, the book is an extension of the eye, clothing an extension of the skin, electric circuitry an extension of the central nervous system.”

When I think about emerging technology, like robotics, XR devices and AI, it’s not something to be scared or wary of. It’s more about being creative with design to make them an extension of ourselves to enhance our life and well-being and that of society.

Whether it’s creating an app for Asthma patients to give them better control of their symptoms (whilst working for an ad agency) or building a prototype to combine blockchain and biometrics for ID2020, a digital ID solution for refugees (my first project at Fjord) — it’s about designing technology that has relevance and works in unison with our human need. The latter took me to New York where we presented at the UN, a real career highlight and “pinch me” moment.

Design on a spectrum

I started my career as a Web Designer and Developer before moving more towards UX Design. I now find myself using research, service design, system design and interaction design to hone in on user problems and experiment with potential solutions. As I’ve moved into a leadership role, it has now become more about recognising the required skillsets for a project and knowing how to shape a team in a way that will best address the design and technical aspects of the work at hand.

This truly came to fruition last year when I led a piece of research around the Future Home. The client initially wanted to understand all the data coming from smart home devices, but we ended up flipping the narrative and suggesting we study people in their homes instead. The resulting research was a fascinating exploration into people’s needs, their changing behaviour and their relationship with technology. We also spoke to architects, an anthropologist and even a ‘Futurologist’ to add a diverse viewpoint to the research. A highlight was working with some of our creative technologists to build out some experiments based on the findings.

One of these included a talking gramophone which played the ‘voices’ of smart home devices to imagine how they might be gossiping about us to each other. It was a great way of showcasing to our clients the need for a proper of understanding data privacy and the impact their products have on their consumers. If we can find ways to build a story for clients around how their products and services have a human focus, they will fundamentally change the way they design and market those products.

My next project looks to extend what we discovered on the Future Home project to explore the dynamics of our new remote work/life. With the pandemic, people and industry adapted at lightning speed to accommodate the necessity for people to be at home, but the long term impact of that will be pivotal in how we design and shape future products and services. I’ll also be work internally with the studio to build out new design methods and ways of working so that we can keep being curious and flexible in how we work.

Unique Times

We find ourselves in a uniquely challenging but uniquely exciting time. When you bring something as challenging into the world as a global pandemic, it changes how we perceive it — and how our clients perceive it. It alters our infrastructure, our datasets and mindsets. It also creates space to accelerate change where we didn’t think possible.

It is a time where the humanity of experimentation is vital to our way of thinking, working, collaborating and driving decisions. It’s a time where the value we seek for ourselves, our clients and society has never been more important. But it also brings enormous opportunity. How we navigate that opportunity requires strong design leadership and curiosity to embrace those challenges. Design allows us to be brave and challenging with our ideas. If I can be even a small part of that, I’ll be grateful that all my experiences and learnings in my career will have been worth it.

Personas are dead. Think about how much you’ve changed since you first became aware of your home surroundings — I mean properly aware. For argument’s sake, let’s say you were 16. How has your attitude to your home evolved in the intervening years? How has it changed since you moved out of your family home? If you’re lucky enough to own your home, how do your behaviours and choices compare to those when you were renting? If you live with a partner and/or children, how has your landscape changed since they arrived? How have your needs at home around comfort, safety and control adapted in unison with your changing life?

I’m going to take a punt and guess that you’ve changed quite a lot — gradually passing through different phases as your situation, environment and maturity evolved. So how accurate would a static persona be? A stopped clock is right twice a day — a persona might be accurate once in a person’s lifetime.

How to make a mindset

The research project I mentioned in the first of these two articles helped us to shape mindsets that reflected how real people and their choices change over time as their circumstances shift. We set out to define mindsets that would give a more comprehensive understanding of how to design the smart home products and services a diverse range of real people would want to use.

Our mindsets are made up of three key factors that allowed us to build a picture across a range of people and circumstances:

1. Life stage — those with children and those without, which allowed us to account for the changing dynamics that children create.

2. Personality — how a person’s character plays out in their home.

3. Relationship with technology — how willingly and easily a person adopts a new technology.

Digging a little deeper into personality, we saw that people sat on two sides of a scale: those who use their homes as an opportunity to reflect their own personal brand (Showstoppers) and those who prize privacy and comfort above all else (Nestlers).

When it came to their relationship with technology, we saw early adopters who take pride in their ability to use the newest gadgets and systems (Explorers) and those who need to find a real need or value before they’ll commit (Navigators).

These two axes formed the framework for us to build our mindsets.

What’s your mindset?

At the core of our research is the fact that everyone seems to have a different idea of what “home” means, and how their home should relate to the world beyond it. Taking into account personal affinity, outlook, interest, tastes, time, context, age and geography, each individual’s needs for their home vary dramatically.

We found that most people fit within one of eight mindsets:

1. Mr/Ms Ambience uses technology to heighten sensory experiences.

2. Wired-Up Urbanite uses technology for everyday convenience.

3. Conscientious Controller uses technology for efficiency and self-improvement.

4. Chaotic Creative uses technology for convenience but is reluctant to invest.

5. Drone Parent uses technology for safety, efficiency, and convenience.

6. Hip Happening Parent uses technology for fun.

7. Savvy Senior uses technology for luxury.

8. Social Grandparent uses technology for social connections.

The $64,000 question

What does this mean for companies and designers who want to create smart home products and services? In short, this depth and complexity of understanding of their target market is their best shot at being able to design products and services that truly earn customer loyalty through relevance and transparency

For instance, our research dives into complexities and nuances of what home means to each mindset. As an example, some of our respondents said that being surrounded by their personal things like blankets and candles evoked a sense of safety more than security cameras would.

Our findings examine how people’s choices and behaviours evolve as they move through phases of life, and uncover tensions that add an extra layer of comprehension. In relation technology, our respondents didn’t identify technology as being uniquely negative or uniquely positive, it was the tensions they felt that were the most compelling. As an example of this, people expressed that technology made their life easier while also being concerned that it makes them lazy — while others found that while technology made them more connected, it also created an experience of isolation.

If we’re to make progress with smart home products and services, we need to recalibrate product design and marketing strategies, and ideate with clients in a new way. The products and services we strive to create must take into account the complexities of people’s needs and acknowledge and cater to the tensions they experience.

This is the second of a pair of articles. The first: Designing future homes: we’ve got it all wrong.

To read a summary of our report click here

To download the full report, click here.

Designing future homes: know your audience was originally published in Design Voices on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The homes of our future are all about technology, right? Connected home spaces that predict our needs and seamlessly act to support them. Unfortunately, the reality isn’t so delightful. Progress towards that type of future is being severely stunted as we find ourselves stalled with a collection of standalone, unconnected products that don’t work together. Too many home technology companies start out with the goal of designing a dazzling piece of domestic gadgetry, when what they should be doing is starting out with people.

It’s not simply about identifying the needs and values people have at home. We must work to understand the nuances of the meanings around those needs and combine them with a deeper understanding of people’s complex relationship with technology — both now and as they move through the phases of their lives

The future home is about attitude, not technology

We surveyed 6,050 people in 13 countries, and observed 40 people in their homes. When we asked them to tell us which words they would use to describe home, the top three responses were “comfort”, “safety” and “control” — but their definitions of and attitudes to these words differed dramatically. That being the case, we need to re-evaluate how we design connected products and connected spaces so that we deliver comfort, safety and control for all definitions.

50% of respondents now spend more time at home than they did five years ago

With the proliferation of on-demand television, fitness apps and delivery services, people have fewer reasons to leave their homes than ever before. Rather than aiming to deliver efficiency with smart-home technology, our focus now should be on finding a place of relevance in people’s increasingly home-based lives.

To do this, companies need to start with human insight to understand people’s needs as a complete picture. Instead of asking how their product or service can work in isolation, they should look at how it will flow seamlessly into people’s lives, working with their existing routines to offer new levels of comfort, safety and control.

Our research has revealed eight mindsets that describe the attitudes, desires and fears of groups of people in various stages of their lives.

Work out the tensions

As part of our mindset development, we evaluated people’s perceptions of technology at home and saw a number of tensions emerge from our data. While people find technology makes life easier, some fear it also makes them lazy. Where some people believe technology connects them more to the outside world, they can simultaneously experience isolation. Many find it fun to interact with technology, but worry that this very quality could also make it addictive.

We must be mindful of those tensions and include them as an important ingredient when designing future smart products, to make sure they’ll be embraced by a broad range of people.

Trust: forget it at your peril

A connected product or connected space is useless if people don’t feel they can trust it — and different people demand different standards are met in order to earn their trust.

Companies need to understand what makes people’s home sacred to their users, and be absolutely transparent about how they plan to use their customers’ data to deliver a tangible, relevant, and immediate benefit.

The next generation of smart-home products should speak directly to the attitudes of people, and should behave more like a partnership with them than something of which they might be suspicious.

At 26%, people in 65+ age bracket are least fearful of technology

Demographics are dead

It simply does not work to segment people according to simplistic data like age, gender, location and marital status anymore. We need to understand much more intricate detail about the way people live their lives and make their decisions.

Traditional research methods have developed to become infinitely more revealing about the subtleties of human behaviour, and the resulting data is invaluable when designing connected spaces and products.

People are complex and so is the technology we’re developing. Using basic data will never be enough to facilitate a sustainable and rewarding relationship between the two.

This is the first of a pair of articles. Check back soon to read up on the eight mindsets our research revealed.

To read a summary of our report click here

To download the full report, click here.

Designing future homes: we’ve got it all wrong was originally published in Design Voices on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.