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Designing connected products : UX for the consumer Internet of Things
Rowland C., Goodman E., Charlier M., Light A., Lui A., O’Reilly Media, Inc., Sebastopol, CA, 2015. 726 pp. Type: Book (978-1-449372-56-9)
Date Reviewed: Jul 27 2016

Seven hundred pages of text on topics like network architecture, battery-life considerations, and authentication mechanisms; only a masochist would read this stuff! The good news is that there are color pictures of real-world products in the Internet of Things (IoT) realm on about 50 percent of those pages.

There are five really interesting case studies scattered among the chapters, and I have to confess that I read those before I looked at anything else. One of these describes an ingestible sensor that communicates with a device worn in a patch on the body. This device then transmits data to a mobile phone, and that data can be used by caregivers to monitor patient health.

There is a case study of an integrated energy-management system for a sustainable community of 150 homes in northern England; a “Goldilocks” interface is used so that each resident can describe whether his home feels “too warm,” “just right,” or “too cold.”

Another case study concerns a pelvic floor exercise monitor for women. An insertable device measures the intensity and duration of muscle contractions, and these are displayed graphically on a mobile phone.

Some key issues are identified in the book’s introductory chapters. Among these are the limited sizes and unusual aspect ratios found in some display devices, the need for success confirmation when an action is initiated over a delay-prone Internet or other connection, and the difficulties in providing power when needed in IoT devices. These issues are expanded upon in later chapters.

A typical smart switch like the Belkin Wemo uses a Wi-Fi mechanism for connecting via some sort of router to the Internet. Other IoT devices can use a local Bluetooth or ZigBee connection to an intermediate gateway device. These arrangements are discussed in a couple of chapters, and there are some sample Extensible Markup Language (XML) code segments that might be used with third-party application programming interface (API) providers like Xively.

The authors consider that radio-frequency identification (RFID) devices like the London Oyster card can be regarded as IoT devices. In this vein, there is an intriguing photograph of a pet cat being waved in front of a Sureflap microchip pet door during a “pairing” process. An accompanying note warns: “This process can take some time and effort if the cat has a forceful personality.”

There is an interesting chapter entitled “Interface and Interaction Design” in which alternative input methods like speech and gestures are discussed, together with output methods like touch feedback and flashing lights. Force feedback can be appropriate for surgery robots, and voice output devices are appropriate for in-vehicle guidance systems. The concept of universal design is introduced. Smoke alarms should have flashing lights as well as audible sounds so that they can be recognized by those who might be deaf or wearing headphones; washing machines should have controls with tactile feedback and audible cues.

IoT devices have traditionally been designed for ease of use, with little regard for security. We now have smart refrigerators that can automatically order products and medical devices like insulin pumps with unchangeable passwords. The consequences that could result from illegally accessing such devices might be horrendous. Some suggestions for risk management in IoT devices are included in the chapter entitled “Responsible IoT Design.”

Several authors have written the chapters in this book, and there is some overlap in the concepts presented. This is particularly true for design guidelines like “Move beyond the comfort of your own workplace into the places where potential users work, play, eat and sleep.”

This book was intended for user-interface designers and technologists who want to make better user experiences. It will certainly be of interest to readers in those categories. And as an actual user of IoT devices, I found myself fascinated by the concepts presented and the range of devices used to illustrate those concepts.

More reviews about this item: Amazon, Goodreads

Reviewer:  G. K. Jenkins Review #: CR144637 (1610-0736)
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