However, home automation remained a niche market. It was expensive. It
required significant technical skill to set up and maintain. Even those
mainstream consumers who had heard of home automation did not see much
value in programming their heating, lighting and appliances. Had it been more
affordable or easier to use, more people might have been willing to try it out.
But only now are consumers starting to see the utility of connected home
products. This is arguably driven by the rise of the smartphone, giving us a
metaphor for the ‘remote control for your life’.
What’s different about consumers?
Mainstream consumers are now more aware of connected devices, but they
need to be convinced that these products will actually do something valuable
for them. A product that appeals to an audience that loves technology for its
own sake cannot simply be made easier to use or better looking. To appeal to a
mass-market audience, it may need to serve a different set of needs with a
different value proposition. Chapter 5, Understanding Users, covers learning
about user needs and some of the special considerations you might encounter
when designing for IoT.
Mass-market product propositions have to spell out the value very clearly.
Users will be subconsciously trying to estimate the benefit they’d get from
your product as offset by the cost/effort involved in acquiring, setting up and
using it, and you need to be realistic about the amount of effort they will be
prepared to invest in your product. The further along the curve they are, the
more users need products with a clear and specific value proposition, which
require little effort to understand or use. And they have a very low tolerance
for unreliability. Your product has made a promise to do something for them,
and it must deliver on that promise.
This is not simply a question of lacking technical knowledge, and certainly not
of users being dumb. That 10-step configuration process to set the heating
schedule might seem trivial in the context of your single product. But it can
feel overwhelmingly complex in the context of a busy life with many other
more pressing concerns. For this reason, consumers tend to be most attracted
by products that seem as if they will fit into their existing patterns of behavior
and don’t require extra effort. For example, ATM cards and mobile phones