The Tyler Graphic & Interactive Design Graduate MFA students were tasked to create and design a series of devices under one parent brand for a smart home.
The five of us worked together to conduct research, develop the brand, and design the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) of all of the products in our system. We selected products in the home that most people are already familiar with and aimed to design a cohesive system for them to work together. All of us used our unique skills to develop this friendly and efficient smart home system and brand under the instruction of Assistant Professor Abby Guido.

In developing this smart home system, our goal was to create a user experience that was as seamless as possible. We conducted extensive user research which helped us narrowed down our audience to a specific demographic: young professionals who needed to balance their work and personal lives while maintaining self-care. Through numerous surveys and interviews, we examined the pain points that exist between an individual and their at-home devices to identify how to make their experience easier and more user-focused.
The research process was extensive and thorough. To get an understanding of how to design with the user at the forefront of our mind, Abby had us read User Friendly by Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant. After that, we worked as a team to conduct surveys with almost 200 people. We spent hours parsing through the research and brainstorming in order to create unique user personas and understand the needs of our target users.
Each team member focused on multiple aspects of the project: branding, UX/UI, illustration, research, 3-dimensional renders, and more. We all had opportunities to jump into various facets of the project at different points which allowed us the balance the workload while giving everyone a chance to experience many areas of design needed to complete a project of this scale.
While we envision a family of products that span the entire home, for the sake of time we selected four products to feature for our initial launch: a door lock, a coffee maker, an oven, and a central hub that connected the other three products. After putting together countless wireframes and user flows, the UI/UX team began designing the product interfaces. As the chosen devices held unique functions and interactions, we needed to develop a robust design system.
Our semester was entirely online, so as a team we had to overcome various challenges. This included figuring out designing in Adobe XD collaboratively, working around our schedules to hold regular Zoom meetings, and planning work sessions without the benefits of meeting in-person.
However, as a silver lining, we had the opportunity to meet many incredible people who were kind to stop by during class time. Several designers came to our class, shared their work with us, and gave us helpful feedback about our project.

We designed the UX/UI, branding, illustration and 3-D mockups for the following smart products:
Hub: This was the Command Center for the RHEA smart home system that connects to all RHEA devices for seamless integration. It would come pre-installed on the RHEA hub tablet and would also be available as a mobile app.
Lock: We all know the mantra, “phone, keys, wallet,” before leaving the house. What happens when you forget your key though? This all-in-one security system manages and records individuals’ access to the home, using a code system. The lock’s features also can allow multiple people temporary access when and how the user wants.
Oven: Ovens can be mysterious. What’s the difference between bake and roast? How do you know the pre-heat temperature for a frozen pizza after you’ve thrown the box away? The features of this smart oven are meant to quell the confusion. They include an auto shut-off feature, pre-set heating capabilities, easy-to-follow recipes, and other nifty functions to make cooking easy.
Coffee Maker: It’s like having a barista in your home. This device remembers all of your favorite drinks, down to the type of milk and heat temperature. Oat milk latte, anyone?