UX Design For IoT: Designing Experiences. 1/3

The user experience (UX) came from the world of computing, as the way in which we interact with different websites. But this has evolved to more complex interactions such as those that occur through mobile phones, tablets or smart TVs.

And we are still looking for the best ways to design new devices and experiences for the user.

Many companies are investing large amounts of money to create complete lines of IoT products, a market that is expected to comprise 25 billion devices, and will be worth a total of 267 billion dollars by 2020.

Is there a “right way” to design a good user experience in IoT?

Assuming that there are people who do not yet know or do not care about what IoT is, we must realize that the “Internet of Things” is only the facilitating technology that allows the user to have a magical experience. We cannot expect consumers to use the word IoT, just as we cannot require drivers to know all the parts of an engine.

Designing for IoT can be scary depending on the type of designer you are, it poses many more challenges and challenges than a design of another nature. One of the most obvious differences is the wide variety of devices and their different sizes, but what happens when we have to make an experience for devices without a screen?

Doing something apparently simple like turning on a light becomes complex when it is part of a system that encompasses many other interconnected systems. Interactions can be handled by web applications or smartphones and the user should feel that he is using a coherent service instead of a bunch of unconnected UI (user interfaces).

We get frustrated when we enter a web page and it takes seconds to load, but we assume that it is part of the use of the Internet. When we interact with a physical device through the Internet, those latency problems also exist and could result in the real world starting to be slow. Can you imagine that the light through connected devices takes 5 seconds to turn on?

The maturity of the technology with which we work, the context or expectations that users have of the system or the complexity of its service are some of the new challenges that the Internet of Things poses for design.

We assume that this entire new connected world is constantly active. If I make a change in my computer, I assume that it will be replicated in the rest of my devices. But in IoT it is different. Many of these devices are battery operated or connected only intermittently, producing synchronization disturbs and creating discontinuities in the user experience.

As a user, I do not need to know how a conventional Internet server works, but as a consumer of an IoT service I should know that it consists of:

• One or more connected devices,
• A server in the cloud,
• Maybe a gateway device
• One or more control applications that run on different devices.

We have to have knowledge about the system model, to understand which devices are responsible for everything to work properly and how or where connected devices can fail.

IoT is still an immature set of technologies that are likely to have frequent failures. System designers have to make sure that the important functions are executed correctly but that, if any of the pieces are disconnected, it is explained in the correct way to the users.

Users want products that offer clear solutions to problems and that in turn have good service and support. It is more important than ever to think of a UX that covers interactions in multiple devices, physical hardware, networks … The UX is not only the responsibility of the designers but of all those involved, including the strategy and engineering of the product.

We face obstacles similar to those that appeared with the creation of the Internet in the late 90s. Many aspects of this technology need to be polished and it is time for UX and product designers to take charge of shaping it.

Prototyping, user tests, user research from the early stages of product planning or general knowledge of the context in which the devices operate are crucial for the IoT to evolve and improve the daily lives of billions of people in the world.

Most connected products include different types of interfaces and therefore of interaction and are highly vulnerable if they are not given the proper care. But we will delve into it in following articles.

User Experience Design for the internet of things https://www.oreilly.com/design/free/user-experience-for-iot.csp

Article written by Ana Rosa González, User Experience Manager at Barbara IoT.