DIY Sensor Install Experience
My Role
Strategy, research, UX Design, UI design, asset art direction
Other contributors:
Dara Continenza, Product Management
Michelle Zundel, UI collaboration
Background
Vivint is a smart home and security company. Vivint offers customers smart home and security devices coupled 24/7 monitoring services.
Generally, customers get white glove installation of all their products. However, in the event of sensor needing to be replaced, there is opportunity to empower customers to add and install the new sensor themselves and reduce Vivint's service costs by doing so.
UX Challenge
How might the Vivint app assist customers in adding and installing a sensor to their system so they don't have to call Vivint customer support for help?
Scope
We partnered with our customer service team to develop a way for customers to add and install security sensors to their system themselves (a DIY solution).
Goal
Reduce the number of calls that customers make to Vivint regarding assistance with adding and installing sensors to their existing system.
Constraints
Due to budget constraints, we did not consider the industrial design or technical features of the sensors themselves.
Identifying problems with the current process
I did a brief audit of the current experience of how a customer gets a new sensor and installs it themselves.
Competitor audit
A few colleagues and I bought DIY systems and reviewed them to see what we could learn from them. We found the products and install experience to be extremely simple. We knew we had our work cut out for us.
These are photos from my audit of a security competitor of Vivint's in the DIY space. Most notable was the simplicity of the products. Also, the devices came pre-paired with the system, which meant that the customer wouldn't have to add them to the system manually.
Defining user needs and journeys
In this lengthy exercise, I collaborated with stakeholders to develop user flows to help us understand various aspects of the experience and identify roadblocks early.
In the flows I attempted to:
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Define user needs
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Define experience goals (for each section/step we outlined what things we wanted to achieve what we could help the user feel.)
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Expose technical limitations early
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Expose “unhappy paths” early
Wireframing
I started getting ideas out to put what we learned from our diagrams to the test.
Iteration through prototyping & testing
I created numerous prototypes and tested them with users. Because it was during the early stages of COVID-19 in 2020 and getting them in customers hands was deemed unsafe, we relied on friends and family
Making scalable DIY experiences
I worked closely with other UX designers at Vivint who had already developed experiences from other DIY experiences to create a base UI template. I worked closely with my engineering team to develop components and layouts that would be reusable.
Base style guide and components
Door & Window Sensor Screens (MVP)
Motion Sensor Screens (MVP)
Content art direction
I started out with homemade videos and illustrations in early prototypes to get a sense for what users needed (or didn't need) to complete a successful install.
Once I had a good idea of the required creative content, I worked closely with our marketing team to art direct animations, illustrations, photos and video content for the MVP product.
Photo credit: Kyle Ford, Vivint
MVP Experience
Results & Impact
👍We released the DIY app experiences in a small pilot with about 100 customers the spring of 2021 and then released it to all customers in August 2021.
👍Over 9,000 sensors have been successfully installed since August 2021.
👍 We reduced the number of second calls to customer care (where customers ask for help installing their sensor) by 58%. Our goal was to reduce down by 70% so we still have some opportunity to improve. This has saved the business tens of thousands of dollars each month.
Next Steps & Learnings
We've been pleased with adoption but the rate should be higher. We under-estimated the difficulty in getting customers to start the flow.
We're planning on experimenting in the app to improve the find-ability of the DIY experience in the app to see if that increases overall customer adoption.
We'd also like to explore prompts to remind the customers to install the sensor in the app as well as via email.