Setting up a smart dimmer switch involves wiring, calibrating brightness levels, and connecting to a smart home app. I coordinated design of multiple touch points in guiding users through this process.
My UX team includes a UX manager, UI designer, copywriter, user researcher, and design program manager. I coordinate with 17 other teams to understand requirements and the domain and determine the best design solutions.
UX Designer, Interim Manager
Apr 2020 - Nov 2020
Setting up a smart dimmer is not a simple process, because it involves interacting with electrical wiring in a home and can have safety risks.
Through setting up the product myself and reviewing product reviews, surveys, and beta testing results, I identified the primary steps in the experience and user delight and pain points in each.
Many users find the process daunting and stressful. At each step of the way, UX has the opportunity improve this through clear guidance, simple language, and helpful tips.
Ultimately, the user’s goal is to quickly and conveniently adjust the brightness of lighting in their home just how they want it. Making setup as painless as possible gets them to this goal more easily and with more enjoyment.
Most users who install smart switches themselves tend to be experienced handy types or pros, but our target customer for this dimmer does include people with less experience.
For example, homeowners that get smart home products as gifts or novice DIY enthusiasts.
Through user testing, we learned that some of these novice users would require an extreme level of detail and hand-holding, which would still be unlikely to lead to success.
We decided to focus on disclaimers and recommendations for professional help for these users.
By limiting our target audience for guidance, we could balance clarity and brevity.
From NPS surveys, beta testing, and review of the previous dimmer’s setup experience, I identified areas of improvement and focused design concepts on those areas.
In the NPS surveys, users mentioned connection and drop-offs as a top issue (20% of all responses). I emphasized the importance of this to the engineering teams. Additionally, users mentioned limitations in how bright or dim their bulbs would go.
Calibration allows users to set the minimum and maximum brightness levels of the dimmer. I focused on improving clarity of guidance in this process to increase likelihood of success in getting the brightness levels users want.
I also updated the flow to allow users to skip the process and go with defaults, as the goal of most users is to just get their product working. Calibration adds up to 15 more steps to the app setup experience.
I worked with our UX Research Manager to user test our new setup experience. Unfortunately, with the COVID pandemic coinciding with this work, we needed to test the experience remotely. To make the experience as realistic as possible, we had participants explain and guide a remote facilitator (me) to set up a real dimmer switch live.
After iterating and refining designs and UX flows, I handoff the work to other team members.
Results of beta testing with the final product and 19 users showed positive results for usability.
Though we had wonderful results from beta testing, to really measure success we needed to continue to follow up on user reactions and reviews of the product, especially once it was out in stores. Unfortunately, with other projects priorities and limited resources, we were unable to keep up with this.
The video walkthrough for the dimmer was also published later than the launch date of the product, which likely led to a less ideal setup experience for many customers who bought it early on. Looking back on product reviews now, ratings declined over time, and I wonder how many of those issues could have been prevented or fixed with more follow up.
