| Role | Timeline | Platform |
|---|---|---|
| Product Designer | 3 Months | Mobile, Hardware |
The Context
This project centers on a standalone Smart Home platform with dedicated hardware and a mobile app, focusing on smart light switches. Traditionally, these switches simply turn lights on and off, either physically or through the app. Here, the goal is to expand their capabilities, enabling users to assign custom and advanced functions to any physical button on a Smart Switch through the mobile app.
The Problem
Advanced users expect flexibility from their smart home products, the ability to customize and personalize their devices to fit their unique needs. Many had invested in smart home hardware and built out complex scenes and automations, but the typical smart home's “one switch, one light” model left their physical switches underused and disconnected from the rich automations they'd already set up. The UX challenge was to empower these users with sophisticated control, while ensuring the interface remained clear, intuitive, and uncluttered—even for those with no technical background.
Research & Discovery
The Design Challenge
"How might we give power users near-unlimited flexibility — without building something that alienates everyone else?"
The feature had a fundamental tension at its core. Power users wanted to map any gesture (tap, double-tap, hold) on any switch to any app action — scenes, automations, device groups, individual bulbs. That's a deeply configurable system.
The risk was shipping something that only 5% of users could navigate, while making the other 95% feel like the app had gotten more complicated. We needed to make advanced capability discoverable and learnable without surfacing it to users who didn't want it.
Design Process
We ran several rounds of exploration before converging. The three main directions we evaluated:
1. Separate "advanced mode" - Discarded ❌
A gated toggle that unlocked an advanced configuration layer. Quick to build, but it created a hard boundary that users either never found or felt excluded by — and it created a maintenance burden as the feature set grew.
2. Guided multi-step wizard - Discarded ❌
A step-by-step onboarding flow to assign each switch. Felt guided in testing, but users found it slow and repetitive when configuring multiple switches — the structure didn't fit how they thought about their home holistically.
3. Contextual configuration sheet - Shipped ✅
A contextual bottom sheet opening from each switch's existing settings panel. Progressively exposes tap, double-tap, and hold assignment as users scroll — no mode switching, no separate section. Standard users never encounter it unless they choose to explore.
Key design decisions
1. Progressive disclosure over feature gating
Rather than hiding advanced options behind a toggle, we kept a single coherent configuration surface and let complexity reveal itself as users scrolled. Standard users who open the sheet see a single, clear "assigned function" control. Power users who scroll further find double-tap and hold assignments waiting for them.
This eliminated the need to design for two separate modes, and made the feature feel like a natural extension rather than a bolted-on extra.
2. Three gesture slots, not unlimited
We scoped the gesture model to three interactions: single tap, double tap, and hold. Early prototypes explored more (triple tap, hold sequences), but testing showed that beyond three slots, users couldn't reliably recall what each gesture did — defeating the purpose of having a physical shortcut.
The constraint also forced a useful framing question for users: if you only have three, which three actions matter most in this room?
3. Action picker anchored to the user's own library
When assigning a gesture slot, the picker presents the user's existing scenes, rooms, and devices — not a generic list of system capabilities. This grounded the feature in a context they already understood and dramatically reduced time-to-configure in testing.
A secondary benefit emerged: users frequently discovered scenes they'd set up and forgotten, reinforcing engagement with other parts of the app.