SmartThings App - TV remote control
| Feature Enhancement
Better control at your hand.
The Problem
SmartThings’ in-app TV Remote Control does not have convenient and user-friendly control navigations
Who are affected?
First-time app users
who came from the classic/physical remote controls
who have been using an in-app remote control from older versions or another app
Why are we solving the problem of the : first-time users who came from the classic/physical remote controls)?
we may cover more users who are experiencing or are about to experience the same frustrations as they did
testimonials of “real-time” users are readily available - posted as reviews from the app store and other discussion sites
Why solve this problem?
Users’ Perspective
So they can fully enjoy the experience of using products they have spent on. More specifically,for their convenience and control.
Business’ Perspective
When people buy their Samsung TV and find that the app is not useful and worse that it is frustrating, then that is already a lost opportunity for both SmartThings and Samsungs’ other related products. So, improving the product that the company’s creative team have worked hard for, may increase its work value for their customers; leading to more profit and opportunities for the business to grow.
*SmartThings is an independent subsidiary of Samsung
“Design is the rendering of intent”
— Jared Spool
In this project, this quote served as my inspiration to be intentional about creating something that will bring delight to the users as I also eliminate what's frustrating to them.
User Persona & Their Needs
I came up with user personas based on the people who gave their personal reviews about the app’s TV remote control feature to represent the users whose problem we were trying to solve and identify their similar/common needs.
Long-Term Goal
Setting a long-term goal helps in coming up with solutions to current problems that will contribute to the further success of the company. I anchored the long-term goal on SmartThings’ mission that could unleash greater potential in Samsung’s products, which is by becoming seamlessly incorporated in their customers “everyday things”/ life.
Sprint Questions
Asking the “Can we?” questions imposes a challenge for myself to think about the possible things can actually be done.
How Might We?
Asking the How Might We questions enabled me to start ideating on more specific solutions.
Minimum Viable Product
I prioritized each of the solution to be implemented given the time constraint for this project and I have decided to focus on what can be modified and maximized within the app.
Impact-Effort Matrix
Impact of each solution on user's needs
Customer Map
Adding the HMW questions on the customer map helped me see in which parts of the customer’s journey can the solutions be implemented.
Wireframe
I have outlined the structure and layout of each page while maintaining SmartThings’ original simplistic interface. This is then presented to and discussed with my mentor to see things for improvement before diving into the hi-fi prototype.
Let’s Look Closer
The static version of the high fidelity wireframe allowed my mentor and I to first dissect and examine how the interface of each page is effectively contributing to the enhanced version of the feature before creating the interactions.
Iterations
After another round of evaluation with my mentor, I applied some final changes to improve the interface before the protoype.
High Fidelity Prototype
Testing
The success metric that I used is Task Time. The tasks were chosen based on my assumption of the most common activity that Samsung’s customers would usually perform on the their TV products.
*This is only measured by myself due to the time constraint. I have repeated the set of all tasks 3x per method in different orders and got their average time to minimize my familiarity bias
Assumption
The less time it takes for users to accomplish a task or a set of tasks through a certain method, the more efficient and usable it is.
Results & Findings
Using the Current SmartThings remote control took longer to accomplish the tasks compared to when using a classic remote control; it is to no surprise that users would rather use something they have been familiar with since the substitute does not make it any easier nor faster
The Redesigned SmartThings remote control allowed the user to accomplish the tasks faster than the Classic Remote control and 2x faster than the Current SmartThings remote control.
Conclusion & Development
Conclusion - I started this project with the intention to render an improved design of the SmartThings app - TV remote control based on my personal experience and of the other new app users as well - with the guidance of my mentor through a UX Bootcamp offered by the Interaction Design Foundation.
After identifying a common trend of frustration among its users which comes from several factors being: unfamiliarity, thus expanding the learning curve of new users then a great risk for discouragement and discontinue of use, inefficiency and unusability of control navigations, I looked carefully where these are present within the current customer’s journey and injected solutions for each part. Having a successful result with the usability testing increased my confidence that the solution applied to the current SmartThings app could bring in great potential for an improved users’ experience and increased business profitability.
Development - To an even better way to design for a well tailored experience for all the users, I together with SmartThings and Samsung’s creative team could conduct a ‘Contextual Inquiry’ at the very start to understand when, where and how the users could and would interact with the product. I would also suggest performing an A/B testing if time permits.
Learnings
As I was coming up with my unique solutions to the users’ (including myself) problem, I had to keep going back to both SmartThings and Samsung’s goals and missions to keep my design thinking strategies aligned with (the business) them .
I learned how to communicate simplicity even as I introduced new features to the app with the goal of enhancing users’ efficiency, by presenting it to them for the first time in a way that is most likely already familiar to them.
Working on this with my mentor who acted as a client and an overall design critique is such a humbling experience, that when I just start to think that it could not be any better, he points out how it definitely could be!