Figure 4.1: Nest thermostat shown in home (image: Nest)
“Never underestimate the power of a simple explanation, or a product that
looks nice. If people can understand it, they can want one for themselves.
They’re not scared of it. It stops being a weird thing that geeks do.” Denise
Wilton, designer (and former creative director of design agency BERG)^1
Products can be services
When we talk about IoT, we tend to focus on the edge devices: the activity
monitors, thermostats, connected pet feeders, and more. This is especially true
when the devices themselves look novel (such as the Nabaztag rabbit shown in
chapter 2) or striking (such as the Nest thermostat).
But while the devices are a key part of the UX, they are not the whole picture.
They are all dependent on an internet service. This makes the user’s
relationship with the product much more dynamic. Instead of the traditional
one-off purchase of a traditional physical product, the user interacts with the
provider on an ongoing basis. The user’s experience isn’t just shaped by the
device, it’s shaped by the whole service. There might not even be a physical
product at all: just as you can now pay for Dropbox storage or personal fitness
(^1) From a talk at UX Brighton, November 2012