Helping designers solve for
excessive notifications in
the near future
Coolplay - A starter kit for designers to use when designing for connected devices.
by Teja Srinivas, Sundeep Rao
My Role
The Timeline
Research
Contextual Design
Mental Models
Design System
UI Elements
Research - 3 weeks
Design - 2 weeks
Sundeep
Background
ideation
Web Page(DS)
App UI
My Sketchbook
Read the full story
Background
We acquire new information through a notification
in the digital world just like we use our senses of
sight, taste, smell and touch to acquire information
in the real world. In real world sound is an important
form of notification. It gives us a lot of information without actually turning our head in its direction.
Therefore we have started by analysing the sounds
we hear in my room.
Inside your room
light , fan , doors,
furniture, television,
laptop , smart phone
Inside your house
kitchen devices, running
water, children, people
talking, air condition,
washing m/c
Outside your house
birds , traffic , wind ,
calling bell , people
talking
A venn diagram for a better perspective
Sounds on your phone
In the near future, most of the sounds listed above could be connected to our smartphones. We have made of list of what could be on our phones. Now, that we knew our environment , the next step is to know my users.
Lights
Steam iron
Faucets
Cars
Fans
Shower
Microwave over/ baking oven
Blow dryer
Washing
machine
Calling bell
Refrigerator
Trimmers/
Shavers
Knowing my users
Quantitative Research - 65 survey responses
Online surveys via Social Networking sites -
To get a good understanding about how
users perceive notifications
Qualitative Research - 8 interviewees
Personal interviews over zoom -
To know more about people's mindsets and
their priorities.
Insights from research
Establishing Context
Giving a context to my project will provide me
with direction and purpose. In my interviews
people have talked about giving importance to
health and sustainability. Also Forbes magazine
tell that 77% people want to learn to be
sustainable.
Creating mental models within this context will
help me narrow the scope of the problem and
design something that is important to the user.
Bringing focus into the project by putting the devices in context
Health
refrigerator, thermostat,
microwave over/baking
oven,
Wellness
Smartphone, fire alarm,
calling bell, television,
shower, trimmer
/shaver,
Sustainability
Cars, faucets, shower,
flush, washing m/c,
dryer, steam iron,
lighting
User Characterstics
In order to chart up the mental models I
came up with some user characteristics
which are derived from my interviews. I
have also only the characteristics relev-
ant to the context I have established.
Designing for user characteristics
that are marked by blue lines
Mental Model
After specifying the user characteristics, I tried
to find such people among family and friends
and spoke with them which helped chart up the
following mental model.
I derived the mental spaces from the various
tasks people do at home tried to analyse the
notifications we receive before, during and
after we perform those tasks at home.
Gap Analysis -
Opportunities
Any designer working in the following
spaces may use the above mental model
and design for the gaps in it.
Laundry : Focus maybe on scheduling of
laundry, knowing the state of clothes or
the freshness and the next step to follow
after it.
Cleaning : There are already air purifying
technologies but we can focus on
gauging certain parameters like air quality
and amount of dust or germs around.
Cooking : We can focus on the stock in the
house and nutrition value in line with my
context.
Safety : The users should be assured they
are safe and let them know if they are
forgetting something before leaving the
house.
Self Care : Some simple notifications can be designed to coax users into taking care of themselves.
The Market
This was the turning point for our project. Taking
a look at the market made us realise that there
are a lot of smart devices in the market. We did
not want to add to the noise but reduce it,
therefore decided to go away from the thought of
designing an entirely new product.
The Solution - Coolplay
As we did not want to add to the existing noise, we refrained from designing a new
products and focussed on finding ways to help other designers who are designing for specific target group of users.
Since we started with the goal of reducing the noise of excessive notifications, we decided to come up with a design system that lays out some principles and standards to create experiences that inform rather than
disturb the user.
Coolplay is a flexible design system that can used when
designing for connected devices.
It outlines the Mental Spaces to explore,few General Principles to follow and a basic UI Structure to build upon.
Check out the Design System
& download the assets
Using the Design System for an App
So, why a design system is better?
After research & analysis, I understood that there could be numerous scenarios to consider as no two people are alike. For example, a user living with an elderly person will be in a different mental space as opposed to someone with a teenage kid and this could change over time as shown in the below picture.
Therefore a flexible design system which can
used by any designer as per their target users
could be the answer.
The mentalscapes of a person changing over time
How do our smart home
devices compare?
Google Nest mini(white) and Amazon
echo dot 3rd gen(black) are the most
popular smart home products in the
market right now. Let’s see how they
hold up to the Principles of the above
Design System.
Aren't our smartphones helping control our notifications?
Yes, in android and ios, we can turn on or off
our notifications but we cannot prioritise them.
Some apps help clean up notifications but most
people feel that not all notifications are bad.
Takeaways
Design Systems
> As the number of devices continues to rise at an amazing
pace, the need to create thoughtful design systems is
becoming clearer
> They bring logic and structure to the screens and probably would be a good starting point when developing new products or services.
> Using a collection of repeatable components and guidelines changes the pace at which new products are developed
Design inside the person's mental model
Anything I design should never go outside the users mental
model. For example, if a washing mc gives a high pitched noise to indicate the end of a wash, we must always use similar type of sounds to indicate such the end of such operations. Anything other than that will be frustrating to the user.
Future proof your designs
Build and improve on design systems as technology is never the same.There are various ways which can help you make short but effective improvements to the product, one of which is organising quick design sprints and testing out ideas.
Reflection
If I had a second chance
> Research about how these smart home devices are designed and how they attempt to cater to no single target user but many at a time
> Explore artificial intelligence technologies that enable smart devices to get better with time. I would like to rethink the. project from a technology perspective .
> Deep dive into design systems made by big tech companies, learn how they approach such challenges and rethink my project.
Next steps
> Stress test the design system by asking other designers to use it.
> Expand it to consider new environments such as the office.
