Design & Research Tool Kit

The Purposes

To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted confidential information in this case study. All information is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Deep Sentinel. 

Support Product Scalability

Device customization
Social share
New devices support

Project Schedule

As a startup we run with a scarcity of time and people; that’s why prioritization and a strong user obsession played a guide to our path from ideation to launch in every feature. This project wasn’t built overnight. Every feature was launched due to user prioritization and business goals.

Customer Insights

By gathering data and talking to a lot of homeowners and 1.0 app users who have the systems installed in their home, we were able to sort out 3 personas that represent the gradient of behaviors of homeowners as well as our target user groups. Below are the highlights for each persona:

Interestingly, almost all the user groups say that they pay huge attention to “Peace of mind”. People who never installed the security system before, have more requirements for the “Flexibility”. Most people expect the system “Easy to customize” instead of the heavily DIY process.

Now, in order to better suit the user’s needs, I conducted a heuristic evaluation of App 1.0 and found the gap between those. 

Mind the gap – Heuristic Evaluation

To get a better idea with our limited resources, me and my colleague went through a quick heuristic evaluation of the existing app, to get a better idea of the usability of the existing app and see the gap. The evaluation results are shows as below:

Overall, the 1.0 app has an unclear hierarchy, and users have limited control as well as poor error prevention. These two limitations make it hard to redesign the visual UI and make it scalable.

Easy-to-use Navigation

To suit future feature requests and make it easier for users to navigate, the re-architect of the app is imperative. 

Plus, I recolored the app & standardized the fonts to make it easier to read and more accessible. I also created design guidelines and icon sets for future references.

Better Onboarding Flow

Simplify the onboarding process to minimize the user’s workload for using the system.

Deep Sentinel is about protection, and peace of mind. We worked so hard to provide everything to our customers, so we definitely don’t want users to struggle when adding their systems. That’s why I break the old flow into separate steps where users can pause, add, and still have access to the app and help topics.

I give freedoms to users so they can customize their system preferences and onboarding with customizable features. 

To improve the onboarding flow, I interviewed existing customers and went through the steps with each of those, to summarize their pain points and better organize our steps:

• Multi-hub support
• Extender/mesh wi-fi support
• Internet speed test

New Architecture & Enhanced features

Once users get their system installed, they will have full control to see the details of each event, devices, and learn more about how their systems are performing.

Whenever a user needs to look back, the history view is the right place to go. I learned about users behaviors when they search history events and what they would do with those events and improved the display to be timeline-based, with a filter to let user better locate the clip they need, and for the video player, the new app gives users ability to share or download the clip easily.

Customizable Device Manager

Give user controls to adjust the hardware setting in the app, as well as modify the connection without reinstalling any hardware.

Share the Sense of Safety

Our business model based on subscriptions, and we value referral a lot because we believe customer’s feeling and engagement are super important. That’s why we give existing customers a way to share their love with our products and get more values by referring friends. I try to make this step as easy as possible.

Results

The Deep Sentinel app was not a single delivery only. It continues to grow and improve through user feedback. Besides that, we could see great results coming through the app and impacting the company as a whole.

4.6★

App Rating (used to be 3.6★)

89%

App Crash Reduction