UX for Internet of Things = Experience of Things

As the Internet evolves, so does the world of devices powered by it! IoT is coming! – We have been hearing this for quite some time, now it’s making the world go places. By the time we start feeling its impact, smart devices have already formed a world of their own by creating a digital mesh around us. Sky is the limit – that’s how an IoT enthusiast puts it; describing the hurdles IoT needs to cross before its becomes mainstream and provides immense opportunities for enterprises around the world generating a massive ROI and raising our living standards. What makes an IoT-enabled product deployable and useful depends on how easy it is to use and how much it is going to serve its purpose.

For an enterprise, ROI generated from a product which has a minimal User Interface depends a lot on convincing the users how to work with the product and forgo their old habits. Give them a non-intuitive product and the adoption rates go out of the window. This is particularly true for devices that are mission critical. Performing a step for a hazardous operation, resulting from a non-intuitive user experience can result in millions in lost ROI from misuse and workarounds from potential shut downs of entire operations, missed timelines and loss in potential investment.

Here comes User Experience differential! How a device with a plethora of features is different from a smart device is where User Experience makes a significant difference. User Experience is vital for any smart product to be truly appreciated for its smartness! We are rapidly moving towards an IoT enabled world and in this process, we are seeing how hitherto ‘dumb’ or mechanical devices are actually prefixing themselves with the ‘smart’ tag. Talk of smart fridges or smart cars or even smart metres and watches, and you are dealing with stuff that has a brain of its own and might just about challenge yours too!

How User Experience brings in the smartness depends majorly on 4 characteristics: • No-brainer installation: Gone are the days when people would go

through hundred-page manuals. Now it’s all about seeing quick visuals or maybe even a YouTube video and get all set up in 2-5 minutes. The steps involved in installation need to be automated as much as possible to keep them minimal. Does your smart fitness device fit that need? or does it need a lengthy tutorial just for someone to track their first run? Think about it..!

• Quick feedback: If your smart device doesn’t speak your language, users will forget it exists in their lives! Your device must be akin to a human acquaintance that nudges, reminds and assists – providing useful feedback from time to time. All without being too intrusive in the humdrum of daily life.

• Visibility of vital information: Smart devices that are commonly sought after are home appliances or medical devices such as heart rate monitors. It is essential that users be able to quickly read from a prominent display what these devices have to tell them. This is because the information is mostly real-time and needs to be acted upon quickly. While mobile apps can be used in conjunction with smart devices to send out notifications and provide action items or deeper insights to users, the smart device itself must have a minimum level of actionable information provided to consumers.

• Comfort and convenience: Thinking user comfort /convenience means thinking physical design, choice of material, device dimension and context of use. Also, you need to consider the supporting apps or platforms that are needed for your customer to use the device effectively. If your device needs to communicate via a Bluetooth or wi-fi network make sure it is designed to work seamlessly in such environments. All of these elements add up to ensuring the customer has a smooth user experience that will make the smartness of the device much more apparent to them.

It may not seem obvious now, but UX and IoT are tightly linked, and this link is going to grow even stronger with time - with UX taking on an altogether different meaning. That's the word from George Malim and Frank Palermo, who speculate in a recent post that as IoT advances, screens will increasingly go away. "Screens belong in the past," they state. "UX design is no longer about designing for a screen, but about designing for the integrated context." Internet of Things- enabled products have a long way to go for enabling a better user experience. The products that succeed with consumers and employees are those that use a user-centered design process to drive the product’s development. Next time you are considering the IoT, rather than using the capabilities of the technology to drive the product’s development, make the users’ perspective the driver and bring in an entirely different meaning to product development.