Rally the whole product team to create
the most requested feature for a smart lighting app
Lead UX Designer / 3 Months
Figma, End-to-end Design
Lutron Electronics is a smart lighting company that manufactures lighting control systems for clients from homes to large commercial buildings. Lutron app is the smart home app for the Caséta system, missioned to empower homeowners to control their home lighting experience with a tap.
This case study showcases how I, as the lead UX designer, designed and launched the timer feature for the Lutron app. Further, how I collaborated with the developing team/product manager and leveraged the research result to shape the higher-level revamp for the app.
Goal Setting
Lutron app team is on a mission to raise the app rating on the App Store. One of the most requested on the App Store comment is a timer feature. Hence the business came to the UX team, seeking help for one.
However as the lead UX designer, I see the need to verify the need of timer and the challenge to build the timer feature on the app that still need some overhaul. After discussion, the business, development, and I aligned on following two goals.
Business Goal
UX Goal
Preliminary Research
Two goals require different insights, hence I proposed to do a preliminary research with the following two directions. I collaborated with the data science team to narrow down the user set, and my UX researcher to conduct 6 1:1 interviews.
Gain insights for timer. Understanding how users like their timer for home lighting will help me design a feature that can eliminate the requests on app store.
Gain insights for home lighting. Understanding how users interact with smart lightings can how me situate the timer feature in the app. Further, the insight can shed light on some possible future app changes so I can design for scalability.
Challenges
Not everyone on the team is aware of how much effort the development takes and how the user insights can hint the design of the feature. Hence I hosted a brainstorming session with the product owner, developing team, and visual design to empathize them with the users and discuss some questions that are critical to the feature:
Discussion 1
The solution to this influences how prioritized the timer should be in the app. Contrary to its popularity (the most requested feature on the App Store), users don't need it as often but think it is basic.
The team aligned that the timer doesn't need to be highly prioritized but needs to be be easily found when users need it.
Discussion 2
Users don't always control lighting with the app. Instead, users use the app to set up rules for home lighting.This triggered the discussion of "existential crisis" of the Lutron app.
The team started to talk about a future app revamp. I also started to create a more fleshed out product strategy and include more business stakeholders in the discussion.
Decisions
The team has some alignments on the discussions. Doubled with the insights I gain from the preliminary research, I translated the alignments into the following actionable decisions.
Locate the timer feature at the second level of the information architecture, so its not prioritized but still discoverable.
Have the timer tie to individual device instead of the scheduling system, so it will not complicate the future app refresh.
Make sure the element requirements are well documented as timer feature has granular time-setting elements that are new to the design system.
Design
The business goal requires the feature to be discoverable and usable. The UX goal requires the design to be intuitive to users home lighting experience. To make sure both are fulfilled, I came up with the following 3 rationales to evaluate the design:
Users should be able to finish what they want quick and easy.
Users should feel confident about what are they doing.
Users don't experience unwanted and shocking effects in their spatial experience.
Next
What's the next step for the Lutron app after raising the rating on the app store? From the research, we saw that current Lutron app structure focuses too much on daily lighting control, which isn't necessarily the users' priority. It led to a more extensive discussion of the app's mission and how it can blend with the business goals.
I spotted some usability issues in the current flows from the research. The team will continue improving the Lutron app's flows, like tabbed design, add-device flow, multi-home system, etc.
The project showed a successful collaboration between the developing, business, and UX teams. The management decided to experiment having a UX person embedded in one product team instead of what Lutron used to do, assigning project requirements to the UX team.
The Experience
Users go to the edit of the device and tap on the timer list item. After turning on the timer, users can put in the time and will see a short description informing them what will happen with this feature setup.
For devices that have timer set up, a toggle to quickly turn the timer on/off will be shown on the remote control pop-over of the device.
The toggle allows users to choose if they want the app to notify them before turning off the light. In the notification, users can dismiss the notice or repeat the timer.