So I assume you are a UX designer and you are interested in IoT, or someone interested in learning about The Internet Of Things and came across this article. Since this is an introduction, I thought about beginning with a story, an IoT story:
It’s a beautiful sunny, yet slightly cold Monday morning, Julia wakes up to the sound of beautiful classical music performed by her favorite orchestra, reproduced by one of her smart speakers, and as soon as she leaves her bed the relaxing melodies fades away as a voice lets her know she had seven hours of sleep and 1.5 hours of deep sleep, and estimate of three dreams, one of them quite exciting and two very relaxing. Heart health is perfect.
As she gets to the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth the voice reminds her that today is her father’s birthday and that at 2:15PM they are both free so a video call was programmed at that time.
While this is happening, her smart kitchen appliances are taking care of a delicious strong cappuccino, a fried egg over easy, a toast of bread, a small butter cube and 70 grams of a perfectly cut smoke fish filet and perfectly cut slices of avocado with a sprinkle of salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil. The Tesla bot 7 has already arranged the table bringing all the goodies to her just in time for breakfast. None of this is a scheduled ritual, as Julia doesn’t always wake at the same time, sometimes she doesn’t even set an alarm, but the team of smart IoT home gadgets speak to each other in real time and know when Julia is getting ready to eat breakfast or whether she has to run out the door for an appointment.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town we have Georgio, Julia’s dad. Now in his early 70s, he relies on “the voice” to remind him to take his medicine while the water is being served at the right temperature with two lemon wedges, one squeezed and the other placed on the rim because he still enjoys to do it himself, he needs some autonomy and a little independence from the friendly bots sometimes.
Georgio is kind of retired, he owns a construction company that stays busy and that he runs completely from the comfort of his home. This is not an ordinary company, Giorgio’s AI assistant takes care of everything: business development, customer support, advertisement, project management and communicating with all the workers, including the humans and the building bots. While the AI assistant checks blueprints one type of specialized IoT robot conducts a detailed study of the soil of each construction site, making sure the terrain is optimal for building the foundation to each building or providing a warning to Giorgio’s assistant in case the conditions aren’t optimal. If all it takes is a new iteration on the foundation and updating the blueprint to get the construction up to safety standards, so that the city bot in charge of inspection gives it a clear, then there won’t be a need to bother good ol’ Georgio.
Now, this legion of building bots are highly specialized and they all execute the various tasks involved in lifting up and arming the structures from the ground up autonomously. They have very precise sensors that detect and gauge temperature changes, humidity and pressure among other things, very important data to know for an accurate status of materials being welded, bolted on or glued together with super strong nano glues or concrete. These bots connect to extremely precise weather forecast systems and adjust work and processes so that rain, snow, heat or cold won’t compromise critical components of the building’s structure. They also know noise pollution regulations and the amount of people in the area at a given time, how far they are and whether they are indoors or outdoors. With additional real time data and help from the smart city sensors, they can paint a precise picture of acoustics in a one mile radius, based on the location of trees, buildings, parked cars, street lights, traffic lights and the overall shape and location of solid objects. This real time acoustics mapping, people tracking and weather forecast helps the team of robots optimize their performance and prioritization tasks in order to move as fast as possible without compromising safety standards and building code, or infringing on local noise level laws and regulations, keeping the neighbors reasonably happy at all times.
By the way, at the end of each day, an autonomous recycling truck comes to pick up the waste materials produced by the day’s labor. The reason it comes late is because of efficiency or course, but the bots shared the precise amount of waste material that would be placed at the curb earlier that day, and along with all data collected by smart trash and recycle bins across town, the city’s centralized AI system was able to send the precise amount of trucks and establish the most optimal routes to utilize the least amount of energy possible.
The End, for now…
(Some tags in this story: Construction, smart home, city planning, architecture, engineering, weather forecast, autonomous transportation, recycling and trash management and processing, elderly assistance and care, healthcare, smart city, government regulations, building codes, IoT, AI.)
Yes, this is all possible with IoT, super precise and specialized sensors, machine learning working with sophisticated neural engines, and at the center of all, very advanced AI. All connected together, with autonomy performing specialized tasks while also sharing data that is leveraged at scale to carry on even more complex tasks and processes, with almost magical precision, perpetually learning, refining and optimizing, becoming ever more precise, and more personal too, when it comes to direct human interaction.
Ok, you also need efficient processors, rechargeable batteries capable of storing lots of energy and charging fast. You also need networks for these devices to connect with each other and with a centralized server and/or computers when needed. You need smart researchers, developers, scientists, investors, entrepreneurs, designers, prototypes, testing, feedback and data, lots of data… and good analysis of that data.
How to approach IoT as a UX designer
Just Start
Start by reading this article and other articles, watching some lectures, familiarizing yourself with the current offerings and IoT technologies available by Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and all the rest. The goal is to understand the devices, how they work, what they can do, this should enable you to bring it into the design process when a design challenge could benefit from it.
The Mindset
UX designers need to understand the technology behind IoT and include it into the smartphone, desktop, smart watch, smart TV, smart speaker and smart assistant landscape. Not all design solutions require an app, a website, or a smart watch app. Some user pain points could be removed, delegated, erased completely from the user’s consciousness with the implementation of new technologies.
It is also useful to think of IoT devices as an extension of smart devices and platforms, as addons that expand their functionality. Simply put, more options to solve user problems and to create more equitable, useful, usable, enjoyable and accessible experiences.
This might sound very broad of course, but let’s think of ideation for example. When we try to come up with as many ideas as possible to solve user’s problems, if we are knowledgeable of the IoT universe, chances are we will come up with a few solution ideas that might involve a specific IoT technology, that we otherwise would have not thought about.
Let’s explore this idea more by examining the following examples and thinking about what would be more useful and a better experience for the user.
Example 1: Cleaning the floor
1. An app that reminds the user to sweep the floor each Friday
2. An automated cleaning robot that connects to sensors in the house to gather data (e.g. window sensors, door sensors, Alexa, the weather forecast, security cameras, etc.) and can estimate the amount of dust and overall dirtiness of the floor based on human and pet activity, and know when it is optimal to clean the floor, you know, so that nobody is walking around in the house and getting in the way.
The app experience isn’t a very useful experience, it adds to the bombardment of information the user has to deal with everyday and doesn’t perform the cleaning task either. The second experience not only solves the problem, but it frees up time for the user and removes a little bit of digital clutter in the user’s life.
Example 2: Shopping for food and supplies
1. A supermarket type app or website shopping experience where the user needs to: take time to look at the pantry, shelves in the basement and kitchen, inside the fridge, figure out how much food to order fresh so that it won’t go bad before eaten, how much soap, bathroom tissue and baby diapers are left, making a list and going through the whole process of searching, comparing prices, reading reviews and adding items to a cart, and figuring out delivery estimates while at checkout to make sure someone will be home.
2. A smart home with IoT devices: soap dispensers with sensors, a fridge with scanners that knows and keeps inventory of food, a pantry that tracks canned food, including baby food and the cat’s. A home storage area that keeps an eye on cleaning supplies, soap, shampoo, laundry detergent, diapers and bathroom tissues levels. They all share this information with the smart home OS, which then determines quantities to order based on usage and number of people (and pets) in the house, compares prices and analyzes reviews, adds all needed items to the shopping cart, informs the user via a voice interface of pending approval status before placing the order.
Then the supermarket gets the order, collects all items and then dispatches the goods to be delivered by a small fleet of drones that communicate with the house. The home OS then opens a second floor window briefly just in time for the drones to get in and leave, closing, locking and arming the alarm system if there isn’t anyone home.
Let’s take it a step further though. Imagine now that the user has a health IoT device at home that takes small blood samples every three months, not only identifying early stages of any potential life threatening disease but gathering data about nutritional levels and or deficiencies in the blood. Now our amazing home OS, powered by a healthcare AI, orders food items that contain the nutrients the user needs, taking into account allergies. The same OS then communicates with the house IoT smart cooker to plan and schedule a program of optimally cooked and combined delicious meals to target deficiencies while increasing absorption of nutrients.
Yes, I know, this is amazing!
And we as UX designers can help design this whole experience and how the user interacts with it. What an incredible opportunity.
I think we can all agree that a smart home, powered by IoT devices and a powerful AI that eliminates the need to spend any time doing inventories of house items and food to buy, comparing prices, ordering and handling the delivery while taking care of nutritional needs and cooking is a much better experience, specially if you factor in all the time saved over the years.
So what is a better experience, faster horses, a car, a self driving car or reducing the need to even get on a car to run some errands in the first place?
IoT for Thought
Just to be clear, and to further expand on possibilities, what we can accomplish as designers when we leverage The Internet Of Things, here is a list of industries and fields where we can have an impact:
Robotics, space exploration, car industry, environmental science, health sector, research, medicine, military, education, XR -from AR to Mixed Reality all the way to the right side of the reality virtuality continuum(VR), manufacturing, transportation, architecture, engineering, sports, entertainment, cyber security, law enforcement, the democratic process, business, finance, aeronautics, self help, smart homes and offices, meteorology, biology, nanotechnology, and so on.
As long as there is a task to be performed by a user, a pain point to be solved and data collected to inform a design solution, for the most part you can count on IoT to be useful and applicable.
Types of data IoT can collect
There are three main types of data that can be collected. One of them is environment data, such as humidity, temperature, movement, air quality, weight, scale, distance, and more. It depends on how the device is designed, built and for what purpose.
The other type of data is submeter data, and these relate to utility usage, like data collected by smart electric meters, water meters, gas and cable, internet and other networks and more, in the context of operating in buildings with multiple users and their respective habits, with the purpose of accurate billing and increasing energy efficiency.
Then we have equipment data, which is related to equipment operation and maintenance. This data informs tasks like when it is time to connect to a charging station to when it is time to perform maintenance, change a part, and more, reducing headaches, reducing any safety risks, disruptions or unexpected surprises.
If you want to learn more about the technical aspects involved in how the IoT devices work, are classified and how they communicate check out this amazing Ubidots guide by Agustin Pelaez
Important considerations
• Internet Of Things devices can be anything, even a toy or a rocket. They don’t always have a screen. In theory, you can turn anything into an IoT device, even a tree. It is therefore important to think about what you are trying to accomplish and then determine if an IoT implementation would fit the context of the design challenge. It won’t always be a viable or realistic solution at a given time but it’s good to consider it.
• Accessibility: Standards of accessibility such as WCAG also applies to the design of any platform that leverages IoT technologies, and although the depth of this subject is beyond the scope of this article, I want to leave you with an idea that I will expand on in a dedicated article in the future: Assistive technologies and IoT devices can be one of the same. As a matter of fact, complete new devices can be created to provide support and accessibility for users with limited abilities. Alternatively, devices that already exist can be iterated with sensors and features to further support and expand accessibility, like AR or MR headsets for instance.
Think of integrating technologies like spatial tracking, geolocation and other specialized sensors within intelligent XR headsets or smartphones that receive and send data in real time to a smart city and all of its IoT devices. This can enable a new implementation of alt text to a real, virtual or mixed environment where a reality voice assistant provides descriptions of the environment and directions within the context of performing tasks, moving safely to and from locations and providing relevant information and guidance without the need for a user with limited vision to find braille signs unless absolutely necessary. This would benefit users with permanent, temporal or situational forms of vision disabilities as an example.
• Equity: It is always necessary for designers and very important for businesses to consider the next billion users and users who aren’t traditionally represented and included. Minorities and groups of users who, due to their living circumstances, limited access to resources, cultural or educational background, ethnicity, social status or identity, have been traditionally excluded, must be considered when creating the products, services and the experiences these technologies enable.
We need to make sure we include them in all of the stages of the design thinking process, from empathizing with users, defining what problems to solve, ideating, prototyping and testing. Better designs are possible when we gather diverse perspectives from a representative sample in the user’s context and environment.
• Privacy: steps need to be taken within the product development life cycle to ensure that users are in the know about how their data is used, stored and shared, with a simple explanation of how a particular set of data allows certain features and functionalities to work. Users should also be able to toggle on and off specific parameters as it relates to their data privacy should they feel the need to do so.
• Security: This is one of the most important considerations for any company, product or technology that connects to the internet or any type of network susceptible to cyber crime. Designers need to absolutely make sure that, even though they aren’t directly involved in the development or cyber security of the products they design, that there is zero confusion about how the design communicates status updates, whether updates should happen automatically or not, system security notifications and so forth. There shouldn’t be any ambiguity about what action the user must take if any. Team collaboration is critical though, especially when it comes to security, and it should always be included throughout the development cycle.
In the real world, a UX designer can implement design decisions that impact safety, security and privacy based on requirements.
Closing thoughts
As designers, we have to always be expanding our knowledge base in addition to our skills, researching and learning new tools and staying informed on the state of progress and direction of UX. Just like we are perpetually iterating and improving on products and services through collaborating and the participation of real users in the process, we too must approach our career as an iterative process. We want to increase awareness of industry, the design process, frameworks and workflows, products, users and the impact we can make, hopefully with an informed vision of where things are headed.
This means we need to keep an eye on emerging technologies and the progress and evolution of the ones already in the market, not just because it is something we must do to stay relevant in our field, but because it is, in the end, beneficial to the user and our industry. Ideally, we will learn to recognize when some ideas are viable because the technology is ready.
We should always be user experience designers, always placing the user front and center while adopting a product designer mindset: informed with a pragmatic understanding of the next technologies, with a genuine sense of curiosity, passionate about how we can leverage these technologies and how they could help us improve on existing solutions or create brand new viable groundbreaking experiences. Then we have a better chance at creating a bigger impact for users, society, business and even the planet.
This new found knowledge can inspire new design solutions during the ideation phase. We could also use IoT devices to collect more and precise data during field research, or collect data from devices that extend to the physical world, figuring out ways to speed up iteration, update implementations and operation optimizations. We can also learn more about our users and solve even more problems at scale, as described in the beginning of this article.
It is a team effort, and a lot of the work will require developers and UX designers needing to figure out how new experiences will integrate with users in their everyday life, and how business goals and user needs will be met. A good product strategy informed by market awareness, a solid team, stakeholders and quality user research insights will make it all come together.
If you want to dive in and learn more I recommend this fantastic article by Steve Ranger: Everything you need to know about the Internet of Things right now.
If you are looking for numbers to get a good sense of IoT in the market and projected growth you can also check this very informative article by Adam Hughes
You definitely want to check out this shorter but very informative article by Joe McKendrick: UX needs to operate under a new set of rules within the Internet of Things
Well, I hope to have given you a couple things to think about!
Now it is your turn. If you feel adventurous, think of how farming, grocery store operations and food waste could be impacted at scale with IoT technologies.
What approach would you take?
Leave a comment and tell me what you think about this technology, tell me your experience with any IoT device and whether you had the chance to work on a project that involved this or other related technologies.
Or, what do you want me to explore in a future article?
I am looking forward to connecting with you and if you made it all the way here, thanks for reading!