In recent years, the landscape of smart home technology has undergone a significant transformation. What was once primarily focused on the capabilities and features of individual devices now demands a more holistic approach centred around the needs and desires of users — it's not about the devices themselves, but about how they can enrich your users' lives.

As a designer, I worked on multiple sections of the app with the aim to achieve a higher user-friendliness and engagement, while also focusing on new use cases and integrating additional devices into the system.

Whether it's because you're going on a trip, you have guests at home, you've been invited to a last-minute plan or because you got sick and have to stay home, our lives and those of our users, are unpredictable. A smart home product is not something you discover, use and dispose of - a smart home system is always there, and must adapt to every situation, the predictable and the unpredictable ones.

Human behaviour is dynamic and ever-changing, and designing for unpredictability requires a deep understanding of human psychology, lifestyle patterns, and contextual nuances, as well as the ability to anticipate and accommodate unforeseen circumstances. Every and each feature delivered must lie on the sweet-spot between intuitive usability and adaptive functionality.

We applied the binary thinking principle, to design for all unpredictable scenarios. Binary thinking means designing beyond the the binary states of ‘on’ and ‘off’ to cover the spectrum of possibilities in between. For example a user would like to set up a heating schedule (on), and later, they might want to turn the said schedule off (off).

In this context, we must carefully consider the behaviours that happen within this spectrum of interaction. These behaviours may include: pausing/extending the schedule for a few hours, pausing the schedule for a few days, pausing the schedule for months during summer…

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If users can’t fine-tune the in-between, they might end up running their heating schedules forever (which isn’t very clever) or just leaving it off, ending the experience right away. Also, you have more chances to cover all the needs that each particular user has.

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My team and I redesigned and developed entire sections in the app like a new fresh, adaptable and modular heating features, that increased user satisfaction by 85%. What was once a static and non-adaptable heating system, now aligns with the the unpredictability of human life — letting users easily perform simple actions like extend and pause heating schedules when needed, but also evolving into a more intelligent system that smartly recommends and adapts to your life patterns.

I also co-initiated multiple initiatives around energy-saving features and worked to integrate multiple new devices to the app.