Designing Connected Products ― Ux for the Consumer Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) promises a wealth of new possibilities for interacting with the world around us. But it is still an immature and technology-driven field, and there are many barriers to creating compelling consumer products. This book explains in simple terms what the challenges are and explores practical solutions for solving them.

Drawing on the best of current design practice and academic research, Designing Connected Products provides an introduction to the technology of IoT and practical guidance on designing for diverse devices, cross-device interactions, and complex ecosystems.

UX for connected devices is about much more than UI and interaction design. It requires you to think about interusability, industrial design, conceptual models, productization, and platform design. This book provides a clear and practical roadmap for approaching product strategy and design in this novel market, suitable for both UX design and technology experts.

Claire is an independent UX design, research and product strategy consultant working on internet of things products and services for mainstream consumers. She has a particular interest in the use of technology in mundane, everyday activities. Previously, she worked on energy management and home automation services as the service design manager for AlertMe.com, a connected home platform provider. Prior to this, she was Head of Research for the London studio of design consultancy Fjord, where she led Fjord's involvement in the Smarcos EU consortium researching the interusability of interconnected embedded devices and services. She has worked in UX design and research for mobile, multiplatform and web services since 1997.

Elizabeth Goodman's writing, design and social science research focus on interaction design for mobile and ubiquitous computing. Most recently, she authored the second edition of Observing the User Experience, a widely-used handbook of design research methods. Elizabeth has taught user experience research at UC Berkeley and site-specific digital art practice at the San Francisco Art Institute. As well, she has worked with exploratory user experience research teams at Intel, Fuji-Xerox, and Yahoo! Elizabeth speaks widely on the design of mobile and pervasive computing systems at conferences, schools, and businesses. She has a masters degree in interaction design from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University and a PhD from UC Berkeley's School of Information. Her scholarly research on interaction design practice has been supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship and an Intel PhD Fellowship.

German-born Martin Charlier is an independent design consultant based in London. Martin is a designer with experience across new media art, industrial design, interaction design and design research. His speculative design work has been awarded by the Royal Society of Arts, and he is a fellow of the organization.

He has previously worked at innovation firm frog design, cutting-edge art collective rAndom International and digital service design consultancy Fjord.

While at Fjord he was involved in the EU-funded Smarcos research project investigating design for the Internet of Things. With his broad range of design skills, Martin's focus is on holistic product and service experiences going across the digital and the physical.

Alfred Lui has been a user experience designer for consumer products since 2004. He has created user interfaces and digital services for companies around the world, including the BBC, Motorola, PayPal and Jawbone. In London, he was part of a EU-funded research project to investigate best practices in designing networked objects. Soon after he moved to San Francisco in 2011, he founded the San Francisco Internet of Things Meetup to build a local community around the topic. Alfred frequently writes and speaks about user experience design for the Internet of Things. He is currently the Chief Design Officer of Seer Labs in San Francisco.