The network as a design material: Interaction 16 workshop

The network as a
design material:
distributed systems UX for the internet of things
Claire Rowland & Helen Le Voi
@clurr / @hlevoi
Interaction 16, 1st March 2016
with special thanks to Liz Goodman /@egoodman

“This is more than a UX book; it covers all of the
critical design and technology issues around making
great connected products.”
David Rose. Author: Enchanted Objects 
“As a grizzled veteran of several campaigns within
the matter-battle of the Internet ofThings, I was
pleasantly surprised to ﬁnd the number of times this
book made me pause, think, and rethink my own
work (and that of others).A very valuable addition
to the canon of design thinking in this emerging
area.”
Matt Jones. Google
 
“Whether you’re an IoT pro or just getting started
designing connected products, this comprehensive
book has something for everyone, from
examinations of different network protocols all the
way up to value propositions and considerations for
hardware, software, and services.This book takes a
clear-eyed look at IoT from all angles.”
Dan Saffer. Mayﬁeld Robotics

Today’s workshop
Through presentations and breakout exercises, the aim of
today is to give you
• An understanding the role the network plays in shaping the
experience of connected products
• Knowledge of the UX challenges
• An opportunity to explore ways of addressing these
challenges for different types of product and contexts of
use

Why networks are important in connected product UX 30 minutes
How things connect - different architectures (demos and acting it out) 30 minutes
Break 15 minutes
Network challenges part 1 40 minutes
Design exercises round 1 40 minutes
Break 15 minutes
Network challenges part 2 15 minutes
Design exercises round 2 40 minutes
Discussion and wrap-up 15 minutes
Timings

Why networks are important in
connected product UX

Internet of Things, Connected
Products, Ubiquitous
Computing…

33billion
Devices will be connected by
2020 - that’s nearly 3x as many
as in 2014
Ref: Strategy Analytics

Images: Emmett Tullos, Bigbelly, Smart Structures,Wikicommons, PowerOasis, OnFarm, GROUND Lab
Industrial

By 2020, consumer spending
on smart systems for the
household will reach $130
billion globally
Ref: Strategy Analytics

Consumer
Images:Withings, Made by Many, ecobee, Pod, Philips, Streetline, Evrythng/Diageo, Lockitron, Proteus

“The rush to create new
commercial prototypes, products,
services, systems & stacks often
means culture, custom, needs &
desires are overstepped in the
reach for proﬁtable new use cases”
@thingclash
We’ve seen this before…
Are we designing the right things?

Security
Privacy
Environmental impact
Interoperability
Value propositions
Business models
Industrial design
Novel UIs and interactions
Interusability
Machine learning
Designing with data
Ambient interfaces
Socio-cultural issues
Smart environments
Designing for networks
Confusing conceptual models
IoT design challenges

http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/heck-internet-things-dont-yet/
Shiny visions of the future
- …

…but the reality is often new ways to fail
‘It’s a bit glitchy but it’s OK, you just have to be in the
room at the same time’. Actual review of the Wink hub

and “A bit glitchy”
could be fatal…
or vulnerable…

Exercise One
Who here has designed for IoT?
?What challenges did you face?
What do you think the big
UX issues might be?

When we talk about design for IoT…
We tend to focus
on UI & industrial design

Facets of IoT UX
Most
visible
Least
visible
Conceptual model
How should users think about the
system?
Interusability
Interactions spanning multiple devices
with different capabilities
UI/visual design
Screen layout. Look and feel
Platform design
Conceptual architecture and technology
enablers spanning products/services
Industrial design
Physical hardware: capabilities and
form factor
Interaction design
Architecture and behaviours per service,
per device
Service design
Customer lifecycle, customer services,
integration with non digital touchpoints
Productisation
Audience, proposition, objectives,
functionality of a speciﬁc service

It’s not just things… it’s about
the interconnections between
things
“The network is now a design material”
Liz Goodman

In pure software services,
we’re used to this

Things can be slow to upload or
download

Skype calls are choppy, or fail

Image: Nissim Farim
But we don’t
(yet) expect
Things to
behave like
the Internet
The average consumer is
going to ﬁnd it very strange
when objects take time to
respond, or lose instructions

There are lots of ways that
things can connect
• Many different network types
• Local or long distance
• Some use internet compatible networks, some don’t
• Some are open, some are proprietary

Exercise 1
Connected lightbulbs:
ways things can connect

Smoke
alarm to
lightbulb
(API to
API)

So what are the issues?
• How fast messages get through (delays/latency)
• How reliably they get through (reliability)
• How frequently things connect (intermittently or constantly)

Latency: how fast messages get
through
“Latency is a time delay between the moment something is initiated, and
the moment one of its effects begins or becomes detectable.The word
derives from the fact that during the period of latency the effects of an
action are latent, meaning "potential" or "not yet observed”
https://www.itu.int/ITU-D/asp/CMS/Events/2009/PacMinForum/doc/Theme-2_O3b_Latency_White_Paper.pdf

Demo
Hue over local WiFi (fast) and
Internet (slower)

What’s happening here?
(Local WiFi)

Why we can’t
make latency
go away (1)
It takes time to pass a signal over
a network
TCP/IP networking prioritises
reliability at the expense of speed
Applications take time to
manipulate and present data

Here’s a really
extreme example
It takes 28 minutes for data to travel from
Earth to Philae/Rosetta, and the
bandwidth is 28kbps
Image: ESA

Why we can’t
make latency
go away (2)
3rd party APIs (like Gmail and
Twitter) may limit the number of
calls you can make to their API in
a given time slot

Due to Gmail’s API rate limits, it may take 15 minutes for a Hue bulb to notify
you of an inbound email

Questions
?
• Have you experienced these
issues with connected
products?
• Have you experienced them
with software only services?

Reliability
(unpredictable outages)

Why does it
happen?
Things will always lose
connectivity or break from time
to time
Networks can suffer interference
Data packets can go missing
And…sometimes you won’t
know it hasn’t worked

Lightbulb B
Instruction goes missing

What’s the impact?
It depends on the system architecture…
• When everything’s working OK, the differences in architecture
between systems don’t matter so much
• But when connectivity problems happen, the impact on the UX will
sometimes depend on the architecture of the system

Lightbulb A Lightbulb Bvs
rules in cloud rules on hub

Connectedness requires designers
and users to think about system
models
Which bit does what?
Where does code run?
What fails/still works if
connectivity is lost?

Sometimes,
you might
not know it
hasn’t worked
?

Image: Ulfbastel via Wikicommons
Interoperating products
can suffer from
even more problems

Questions
?
• Have you experienced
reliability issues with connected
products?
• Have you experienced them
with software only services?

Why do these challenges matter?
(Bringing this together)

Sometimes, inexplicably,
things don’t work as expected
Or at all…

Review: “If you used the [X] app to turn on/off things, you are fine,
but when you started to mix in turning on a light from the switch, the
status would never seem to update the [X] Hub/app correctly. You
were left guessing as to whether something was truly on or not.Also,
there was always a few second delay when changing the status of
things. It was not instantaneous as I would have hoped it would be.
“This did not bode well for my confidence in any type of safety device
(smoke alarms/locks/etc). Having a light be on when it should be off is
one thing, but if you are relying on a system to notify you in case of a
fire or if you door was locked/unlocked, I was left not feeling very
confident that the Hub would actually work when needed.”
http://zatznotfunny.com/2014-08/battle-of-the-home-automation-hubs/
Uncertainty
Is it actually working?

Health and safety risks
Violation of value proposition
Frequent irritation and confusion
Summing up the consequences

Our approach
Design continuity into a world
with unavoidable gaps between
devices
Adapted from: Cross-Platform Service User Experience:A Field Study and an Initial Framework. Minna
Wäljas, Katarina Segerståhl, KaisaVäänänen-Vainio-Mattila, Harri Oinas-Kukkonen MobileHCI'10

Continuity
Kindle Whispersync
Image: Kei Noguchi via CC licence
The ﬂow of interactions
and data in a coherent
narrative sequence
across devices

Continuity does not mean
designing a seamless experience
It often means handling
inevitable glitches gracefully

How do you use interaction
design to create continuity?

The old goal
Sustain an
illusion of direct
manipulation

The new goal
Help people make sense of how
systems are actually acting

Option 1  
The optimistic
white lie
Conﬁrm action, backpedal if
something goes wrong

Instagram does
this
The photo is already shown as ‘liked’,
even though the phone OS tells us
that the instruction is still being sent

So does Hue…
Let me think about that…
nope

Option 2  
Be truthful,
even if it leads
to doubt
Acknowledge action, show that it
is in progress
Conﬁrm only once it’s done

Lowes Iris is more explicit
Images: Lowes

Exercise
Designing for continuity

Exercise - 20 min
Split into groups (8 groups of 3) - 5 min
Each group gets a printed-out brief
Individual writing/sketching - 5 min
Group deliberation - 10 min
Decide on one direction and explain WHY in 2-3 sentences
Extra credit for sketching/acting out the interaction so that we can
see it!
Think about how things connect, and what delays/failures may occur

You’re working on an in-car audio system. It streams music from the cloud
and has a physical “like” button.
The button talks over Bluetooth to a phone, which talks to a music account
in the cloud.
What are the key user interactions? What, if any, issues might arise during
those interactions from latency, reliability or intermittent connectivity? How
would you handle these in the UX design?

You’re working on a smart lock for front doors. It can be locked and unlocked
remotely from a phone.

You’re working on a personal emergency alarm button for older or vulnerable
people. It connects over a local wireless network to a hub in the home.
Image: natematias via Flickr

You’re working on a remote fish tank monitoring and fish feeding device. It
connects over a local wireless network to a hub in the home. (NB: overfeeding
fish is bad).
Image: johnskate17 via Wikicommons

Present back, discuss
Discussion - 20 minutes
Each group gets 2 min!

Why is
intermittent
connectivity
an issue?
Many devices run on batteries
Wireless connections consume lots
of power
Battery powered devices have to
spend much of their time ofﬂine to
save power

Hive Active Heating Controller

Demo
Intermittency
(and latency)

Why does this matter?
Conﬂicting system status displays
19
2 min delay
21

Why does this matter?
Data may be out of date (whether that matters depends on
context)
A blood glucose reading from
one week ago is not
For most purposes, a body mass
measurement from one week ago
is still quite useful

A live energy reading (every few
seconds) can help you understand the
consumption of that appliance you just
turned on
Timeliness of data is fundamental
to UX and value proposition
A 30 minute energy reading will tell
you about your consumption patterns
over time
Images: Onzo. Electric Ireland

• Devices get out of sync, reporting different status information:
this breaks Nielsen’s heuristic of ‘visibility of system status’
• Which one is ‘right?’ Are any of them broken, or just out of
sync?
• How old is the data? Could it be wrong now? What’s the
margin of error? What’s the impact of it being wrong?
These are also continuity issues

Exercise - 20 min
Split into groups (8 groups of 3) - 5 min
Each group gets a printed-out brief
Individual writing/sketching - 5 min
Group deliberation - 10 min
Decide on one direction and explain WHY in 2-3 sentences
Extra credit for sketching/acting out the interaction so that we can
see it!
Think about how these things are powered and how they connect

You’re working on outdoor gear/clothing with an automatic distress beacon.
The beacon is triggered (how? when?)
What are the key user interactions? What, if any, issues might arise during those
interactions from latency, reliability or intermittent connectivity? How would
you handle these in the UX design?

You’re working on an insulin pump that reports blood sugar levels to your
doctor’s ofﬁce every 15 minutes
interactions from latency, reliability or intermittent connectivity? How would you
handle these in the UX design?

You’re working on a location tracker designed to be worn by sheep. It sends
data to a farm manager’s computer about their location and wellbeing.

You’re working on a management interface for a parking lot sensor system. It
tracks which spaces are available or in use.

Discussion - 20 minutes
Each group gets 2 min!
Present back, discuss

Questions to ask yourself
Is the product…
?
Life or safety critical?
Time-sensitive?
A remote control?
What else?

Safety critical/urgent
Messages must get through quickly
Status information needs to be updated
frequently, and clearly indicate how old it is
Need to know when instructions have been
received and acted upon
Low touch/non-critical:
OK if data or instructions take time
to get through
Assume it’s working unless notiﬁed
of a problem
Senior safety/intruder alarm
Baby monitor
The ‘right’ approach depends on
context
Images: MyLively, Efergy

In some cases, badly handled
network glitches could
undermine the value of the
product

How irritating are glitches and delays going to
be, over time?
How irritating are your glitches and delays going
to be in a world ﬁlled with glitches and delays?
And don’t underestimate the
sheer power of irritation
Image: GhostFaceScream2 viaYoutube

What about non-visual UIs?
We haven’t worked in this area yet.
Have you?
How might you handle network
issues in this instance?

Summary
What was useful?
What will you take back and apply to
your work?
?

If you’ve enjoyed today, the book
covers
- How the technology of IoT affects UX
- Product and design strategy for connected devices
- Industrial design
- Interface and interaction design for embedded devices
- Cross-device interactions and interusability
- Interoperability
- Responsible IoT design
- Designing with data
- Prototyping and user research methods for connected
products
www.designingconnectedproducts.com
@clurr | claire@clairerowland.com
@hlevoi | helenlevoi@me.com

The network as a design material: Interaction 16 workshop

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