UI-user interface design

 UI/visual design refers to screen layout, visual styling, and look and
feel on a device. UI/visual design is concerned with layout and
aesthetics.
How Is UX for IoT Different?
 Designing for IoT comes with a bunch of challenges that will be new to designers
accustomed to pure digital services.
 The specialized nature of IoT devices
 Their ability to bridge the digital and physical worlds
 The fact that many IoT products are distributed systems of multiple devices
 The quirks of networking
 How tricky those challenges will depend on:
 The maturity of the technology you’re working with
 The context of use, and the expectations your users have of the system
 The complexity of your service (e.g., the number of devices the user must interact with to use it)
Specialized Devices
 Many of the “things” in the Internet of Things are specialized, embedded computing
devices.
 Unlike general-purpose computers (smartphones and PCs), their hardware and
software is optimized to fulfill specific functions.
 Their physical forms must be designed and engineered.
 Their UI capabilities may extend from screens and buttons into physical controls,
audio, haptics, gestures, tangible interactions, and more.
 But user interactions must be designed without the benefit of the style guides and
standards that web and mobile designers can rely upon.
 Some may have no user input or output capabilities at all. The only way to find out
what they are doing or what state they are in may be via a remote UI.
Real-World Context
 Connected products exist in the physical world.
 Sensors enable us to capture data we did not have before for digital
transmission, allowing us to take more informed actions in the real world.
 Actuators provide the capability for digital commands to produce real-
world effects .They can be remotely controlled, or automated. But like
digital commands, real-world actions often cannot be done.
 For example : Sensors convert readings from the physical environment into
digital information; actuators convert digital instructions into mechanical
actions.
Designing for Systems of Devices and Services
 Many connected products are systems of diverse devices and services.
 Functionality may be distributed across multiple devices with different capabilities.
 Designers need to consider how best to distribute functionality across devices. They need to design UIs and
interactions across the system as a whole—not treating devices as standalone UIs—to ensure that the overall UX is
coherent. This is inter usability.
 And much of the information processing for an IoT product will often happen in the Internet service. So the whole
system experience is often equally or more important than any single device UX.
 Furthermore, they need some understanding of how the system works. Even quite simple connected products are
conceptually more complex than non-connected ones. Code can run in more places.
 Parts of the system will inevitably go offline from time to time. When this happens, basic knowledge of which
component does what will help users understand the consequences, and figure out what action may be required.
Designing for Systems of Devices and Services
 Complex products, like a connected home system, can have many
users, multiple UIs, many devices, many rules and applications.
 Understanding and managing how they all interrelate can be
extremely difficult.
 Aside from the configuration overhead this imposes on users, this is
a cognitive challenge.
Designing for Networks
 Another major factor is the impact of the network on UX.
 Designers from web and mobile software backgrounds have the luxury of assuming
that devices will be nearly always connected.
 And most users understand that sometimes the Internet, as experienced through PCs
or mobiles, can be sluggish or unreliable.
 Emails can be slow to download and Skype calls can fail.
 When latency and reliability problems do occur, they may be frustrating but are not
unexpected, and can be worked around.
 Delays and glitches are inherent properties of physical networks and transmission
proto‐ cols. But they may feel strange experienced through “real-world” things.
 It’s impossible to engineer these issues entirely out of any Internet-connected system
Designing for Networks
 Computers promise to provide us with precise, accurate, and timely
data about the world around us.
 But distributed IoT systems may not always be in sync, and different
devices may therefore report different information about the state of
the system.
 In a distributed system, designers must often consider delays,
discontinuities, and uncertainty as part of normal user interactions
and handle them as elegantly as possible.
Interfaces in Specialized Devices
 Controls
 Visual and Screen Interfaces
 Audio and Voice Interfaces
 Gestural Interfaces :Swiping and tapping on touchscreens are forms of gestural input
 Context-sensitive interfaces can reduce complexity by tailoring interfaces based on context. They sense
data points such as time of day, weather, location, movement, and the identity of the user. This is used to
make inferences about the user’s needs, presenting only the most relevant options or even taking
autonomous action. This reduces information overhead.
 Accessibility :Abled designers often forget that the products they work on can be much harder, or
impossible, for people with disabilities to use. For example :In a noisy environment, none of us can hear
well, and though we may have two hands, if one is taken up holding a child or a heavy bag, we only have
one left to interact with a product. Connectivity opens up an important opportunity to create more
accessible products. It allows users a choice of interaction channels. Smartphones and the Web can
provide more accessible UIs for devi‐ ces that, on their own, are not accessible.
Interfaces in Specialized Devices
 Composition: In a distributed system, designers need to decide which device should do
what, in terms of user-facing functions. Will each device have a specialized, unique role,
or will some functionality be available across more than one device? This is
composition. Appropriate composition takes into account the capabilities of each device
and the context of use.
 Consistency : Designers also need to determine the appropriate degree of consistency
across different system UIs and interactions. Which elements of the design—such as
terminology, platform conventions, aesthetic styling, and interaction architecture—
should be the same? And which should be different?
 Continuity :Continuity is the flow of interactions and data in a coherent sequence across
devices. Some IoT devices have batteries and only connect intermittently to conserve
power. They may take time to respond to instructions
Interfaces in Specialized Devices
 Industrial Design : Designing great connected products requires deep collaboration
between hardware and software designers. Industrial design refers to the aesthetic
and functional design of the physical hardware in the service, covering the choice of
form, materials, and capabilities it may have. Designing hardware requires a
spectrum of skills rarely covered by one person or even one company.
 Inter usability : Conventional usability/UX is concerned with interactions between a
user and a single UI. But connected products are systems of devices and web
services. There are often multiple devices through which the user interacts with the
system. Designers can no longer consider the UX of a single device UI in isolation.
The UX needs to feel coherent across the system as a whole, even when the devices
involved may have quite different form factors and input/output capabilities.
Interfaces in Specialized Devices
 Conceptual Model: The conceptual model is the understanding and expectations the user has of the
system. What components does it have, how does it work, and how can they interact with it? –
Connected Products.
 Service design is an emerging field that takes a strategic, holistic view of UX. It considers how to
deliver a coherent UX across all customer touchpoints (interfaces and offline components). It takes
into account the user’s changing needs over the whole lifespan of their relationship with the service.
 Productization :Productization is the activity of turning a concept or technology tool into a
commercial product. In terms of design, the most significant part of this is defining a compelling
product proposition. Who is the audience for the product? What value does the product provide for
them? What core features and experiential requirements must be fulfilled to deliver that value? What
is its business model?
 Business models shape the way users perceive the value of the service, fairness of pricing, and thus
the UX.
Interfaces in Specialized Devices
 Platform:
 Platform Design Platform design refers to the technology enablers of the product.
 A platform is a software framework. It takes care of low-level details to help developers
build applications more easily. At their most basic, IoT platforms make it easy to put data
from connected devices onto the Internet.
 Slightly more advanced platforms may provide frameworks to enable different types of
devices to interoperate.
 Platforms may incorporate: • Data (e.g., from sensors) • Data models (e.g., for system
coordination) • APIs to build the UIs on top and to enable interconnections with other
systems, devices, and services Engineers will need to make many technical decisions
during the creation of a product, many of which may not directly have an impact on the
UX.
Use-Case Development
 Apply different approaches to gather business requirements from relevant stakeholders
 Develop well-defined problem statements based on requirements gathered
 Translate business requirements in a clear yet concise manner to the delivery team for use case development
 Identify assets required for development of IoT solutions
 Define the fundamental concepts, principles and phases of Value Engineering and Analysis
 Evaluate frameworks for applying Value Engineering in IoT solutions
 Perform cost-function analysis of IoT solution components
 Draft action plans to incorporate Value Engineering into early stages of the project
 Evaluate data modelling requirements to aid development of IoT use cases
 Evaluate various development models for building IoT solutions (such as Waterfall, Agile, Spiral, V models,
etc.)
 Evaluate and develop various monetization models for IoT use cases (such as ‘Outcomes As A Service’ model)
User Experience Design-UX
 End user’s experience
Framework for IoT Design
 The UI/visual design

 For example, the screen layout and look and feel of the web or mobile apps,
or devices themselves .
 UIs don’t have to be visual; they can use audio, haptics, and other channels,
as discussed. But it’s rare for a service to have no screen-based UI at all.
 The industrial design of the physical hardware
 The form factor, styling, and capabilities of the connected devices
themselves
Design Model for IoT