Abstract

For a long time, smart homes were only for geeks or the rich. But mass market retailers are now starting to bring out affordable connected domestic hardware and services to help consumers understand their energy use, control heating/cooling and appliances, and make their homes safer and more secure. It will soon be normal to turn lights and appliances on and off from your smartphone, and set your burglar alarm over the web.

But the home is a challenging environment: it’s often a shared space inhabited by people with different needs and goals, and the rigid structures of technology driven systems don’t fit the way most of us run our home lives.

In this talk, Claire will introduce what connected home technologies can do, why the UX is often unsympathetic to our home lives and how we might improve it, and general learnings on designing interconnected, embedded systems that can be applied to other types of multi-device service too.

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Claire Rowland is a service designer and UX researcher, currently at AlertMe.com. Her work focuses on connected home technology, with bursts of shouty/bleepy music, scepticism and proper beer.