Redesign the Bosch Boilers GUI for High-end Market Users
BOSCH Smart Thermos GUI
We collaborated with Bosch Thermotechnology to create the next generation of boiler control panels. Our team workshopped with Bosch Engineer and Product Owners to co-create a brand vision and redefined what a high-end smart home experience should be in the Chinese market. We did a complete facelift and incorporated Bosch's extended portfolio, like the Bosch Tronic 7000i T Series, into the larger redesign.
This simple control panel has an easy-to-use interface and informative icon visuals. For the end product experience to work smoothly, it took six rounds of user testing.
Client
Bosch, Teams Design
Role
Jr. Interaction Designer @ TEAMS design
• prototyped and user-tested button layout and usability.
• coded mock-ups on android with Adobe Flash
• drafted scripts for a user test session and summarized findings
• defined interaction patterns for small screen GUI
Team
PM, PO, Interaction Designer, User Researcher, and marketing specialists.
Timeline
2015.09 - 2016.03 , 6 MONTHS
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Overview
"Bosch Thermotechnology underlines the importance of the home as the origin of the energy transition" - Bosch.
New consumer trends shaping the expectation
Among Bosch's European high-end customers, eco-friendly marketing is a priority. However, Chinese consumers place a greater emphasis on reducing energy consumption costs.
The old 8-button controller gets turned into an elegant, smart product.
The heating timer with intelligent scheduling is designed to help users set a heating timer. The solution includes normal and holiday modes to cover all scenarios. A user can see visually how much energy is saved and what it means financially by providing full control and transparency.
In hardware design, every aspect must fit perfectly like a puzzle.
Layout
In the first round of user testing, we redesigned the hardware buttons from scratch and came up with three different layouts. Our next step was to arrange and test the layout to achieve the best usability with the least friction.
Onscreen Interaction
Analyzing hot water usage patterns in different modes and downscaling them into a 72 dpi small screen.
Performance
Indicators
Due to the cryptic navigation, our first version, "game console," proved frustrating for elder users and challenging for younger users.
I triaged the usability issues and summarized them into design implications. I correlated the test results with our assumptions. I correlated the test results with our assumptions. Here we discovered that some of our early hypotheses were incorrect.
Prototyping the path to a cohesive solution
We iterated with 3~4 rounds to find the sweet spot between simplicity and elegance.
The prototype was coded in Adobe Flash and dispatched on an android tablet. Then, the device was then installed into the actual heater hardware shell for high-fidelity tests with hardware sensors linked to maximize the fidelity.
As Don Norman says, "Good design should be understood across different languages." We conducted six rounds of user testing to ensure the design can be adapted not only for China but also for two more major Bosch markets - Germany and North America.
Research
We recruited more than 40 participants from 6 market segments in China to learn everything, from how much they spent monthly on energy to what pains them the most in using a heater. We even interviewed a couple of Bosch's distributors and salespersons to get more context in buying choices.
Method
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Focus groups
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Usability testing,
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A/B test for hardware
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Think Aloud Protocol
