Home Zone
I’m a caregiver to my mom, I don’t want to know when she is out gardening but I do need to know if she made it to her doctors appointment.
Date: March 2021 - Sept 2021 // Company: Best Buy Health // Team: Lively Link Squad // Title: Senior UX Designer
Skills:
User Research, Prototyping, Interface Design, Information Architecture, Analysis, Collaboration, Communication, Design Leadership.
Role:
As a lead designer, I was responsible for end-to-end Link App CX.
Contributors:
1 Visual designer, 2 engineering managers with their respective engineerings, 1 Product Managers, 2 QA, 1 offering manager.
Overview
Problem
In the "Home Zone" project, I discovered caregivers receiving unnecessary stress from automated alerts about their loved ones leaving the house due to the system's inability to customize location settings. These false alerts, triggered by simple activities like stepping into the yard, eroded trust in the system. The challenge lies in refining the "Home Zone" to accurately distinguish between actual departures and harmless movements, ensuring it provides genuine support and reassurance to caregivers and their seniors, rather than causing undue concern.
Solution
A feature that lets caregivers customize the 'home zone' to match the specific living situations of their seniors, be it in nursing homes, large properties, or urban areas. This customization ensures alerts accurately reflect the senior's location thus enabling caregivers to trust and act on the notifications they receive. This trust then reduces unnecessary stress and enhancing the sense of security for both caregivers and their seniors.
Challenges
Challenge One
Conduct a Discovery Effort Identifying Root Causes of Dissatisfaction
To address negative reviews, I initiated the Link Team’s first discovery effort, building trust with the product manager and influencing our roadmap's direction. By highlighting three key issues causing caregiver dissatisfaction, I gained enough trust to influence the roadmap and align on pivoting towards the development of "Home Zone."
Challenge Two
Aligning UX Priorities in a Competitive Landscape.
To ensure our project stood out amid competing organizational goals, I frequently highlighted its UX value to the offering manager. I navigated a limited research environment and regularly presented the insights. This approach won us the essential support we needed to continue working on 'Home Zone'.
Challenge Three
Pioneering a Scalable Design Library.
In partnership with engineers, I led the creation of our first scalable design library, significantly enhancing component reuse and resource efficiency. This effort streamlined our design processes for the current project and set a precedent for future work.
Challenge Four
Navigating Organizational Shifts
As we advanced in the build phase, we faced a reorganization and the departure of crucial stakeholders, including our primary stakeholder and Product Manager. To navigate these changes, I spearheaded communication efforts to bridge gaps and maintain project momentum. By rallying the Design and Product Management teams, we adapted swiftly, ensuring the seamless continuation of "Home Zone" despite these unexpected shifts.
Method
Prioritizing the Problem
With limited means to obtain real user feedback, I relied heavily on user reviews and other discovery efforts, categorizing the themes into three main buckets:
The information I receive from Link is sometimes inaccurate.
The information I receive from Link isn’t useful to me.
I don’t know how to use the information I receive from Link.
Uncovering Root Causes Through Expert Insights
After many interviews with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from sister teams that worked on the backend and had previously worked on Link, I uncovered four main root causes of inaccurate location information.
Design and Build
Solution Hypothesis
By giving caregivers the ability to customize the geo-fence cluster, we will decrease some negative user reviews around location inaccuracy, thus reducing Link user dissatisfaction.
Logic Map
I leveraged a logic map for effective collaboration with engineers and structured the project's information architecture, ensuring alignment with user needs. Together with the Product Manager, we carefully defined the project scope, prioritizing user-centric outcomes.
Landscape Research
Conducted comprehensive research on existing UI patterns for modifying location zones, gathering insights to inform intuitive, user-friendly design solutions tailored to enhancing the caregiver experience.
Iterations
Developed and refined multiple iterations of the UI, incorporating feedback and best practices to finalize an intuitive interface for seamless location zone adjustments.
Design System Pilot
I persuaded the Product Manager of the advantages of integrating our inaugural design system, dubbed Sunrise, into the Link app, highlighting its potential for enhancing user experience through consistency and scalability. Collaborating intimately with the visual designer, we crafted components designed for scalability and adaptability. Leveraging human-centered design principles, Sunrise has not only been embraced across various platforms but has also been the focus of numerous demonstrations, showcasing the value and methodology of adopting a design system centered on user needs.
Research Goal
Determine if messaging around Home Zone gives users an accurate understanding of what they are changing.
“The zone she can roam around in before I get an alert of her leaving”
“The Home Zone is a safety bubble for notifications ”
Accessibility
Ensured our designs met accessibility standards, focusing on color contrast, keyboard navigation, and screen reader support to make our product inclusive and usable for all users during the design handoff.
Bringing it all Together
Impact
The journey of "Home Zone" is a testament to innovation, resilience, and collaboration. Despite facing significant challenges, including organizational changes and the departure of key stakeholders, we delivered a user-centered solution ready for launch.
The introduction of the first design system, Sunrise, not only streamlined our processes but has also been adopted across various platforms, showcasing its broad impact. This project not only enhanced our team's capabilities in design and development but also marked my growth as a storyteller and facilitator in product innovation.
The success of "Home Zone" expanded my role from focusing on specific platforms to embracing cross-platform responsibilities, underlining the profound effect of our collective efforts on the company's direction and on improving the lives of our users.