Verizon Home Awareness
Building connections with customers through a human touch
In the Fall 2023 semester, I spearheaded the redesign of Verizon's Home Awareness web experience to encourage product acceptance from global audiences. As the project lead for this initiative, I guided 3 designers from primary user research to final delivery, all while streamlining client communication with two stakeholders at Verizon.
Problem
Verizon's new beta product, Home Awareness, is struggling with limited adoption due to a lack of reliable information online, despite its innovative features. As a result, users remain apprehensive about the technology and are hesitant to purchase.
Outcome
After proposing a strategic shift in scope, we delivered a new web experience for Home Awareness on the Verizon website, providing information-seeking customers with simple and transparent answers. Our solutions received extremely positive feedback and will inform future product strategy initiatives.
Role
Project Lead,
Synthesis Lead
Timeline
Sep - Dec 2023
Tools
Figma, FigJam
Team
1 Project Lead (Me!)
3 Designers
3 Stakeholders
Disciplines
Product Strategy
Web Design
Content Design
INTRODUCTION
What is Home Awareness?
As the world's leading telecommunications company, Verizon is looking to publicly launch their newest product Home Awareness, a beta product that connects to the user's 5G internet router and uses AI/ML technology to detect falls, intrusions, and general activity in the environment without the use of cameras.
Home Awareness is currently the only existing technology on the market that uses WiFi-sensing to operate, opening a unique opportunity for this technology to disrupt the market.
THE PROBLEM SCOPE
Verizon is looking to gain public acceptance for Home Awareness.
In September 2022, Home Awareness was beta launched exclusively to the Northeastern population of Verizon users, a small subsection of their general consumer base. From this launch, Verizon aimed to gauge acceptance of the product to inform future product decisions. However, the beta launch received moderate acceptance, with customers showing less enthusiasm on the product features than expected.
Interested in launching Home Awareness publicly in upcoming quarters, Verizon reached out to my team of design consultants at Berkeley Innovation to understand user needs and propose new product use cases to encourage both current users and non-customers to purchase the product. Our presented work would inform future product strategy initiatives for Verizon. Therefore, they approached my team with the following "How Might We" question:
HOW MIGHT WE…
create a Home Awareness product that we can monetize?
GETTING STARTED
So much to do, so little time!
As the Project Lead and recognizing that we only had 10 weeks to complete the final deliverable, I recognized the importance of setting a strategic plan before diving straight into the work. Using the 4-sprint method (Research, Synthesis, Ideation, Prototyping), I discussed each team member's strengths and desired areas of learning to map out a general timeline and delegate roles, ensuring that each member could own one stage of the design process.
USER RESARCH
Understanding User Sentiments
To begin our thinking process we began by thinking big — we aimed to understand how the public currently feels about Home Awareness to inform our ideation on areas of opportunity to address. To do this, we began by conducting various user research methods to hear directly from customers themselves.
🏞️
Landscape Analysis
Explore the current use cases and features of similar products from competitors that have disrupted the technology market on release
🗒️
User Survey
Understand the public perception of Home Awareness and locate use cases that prospective customers would be interested in purchasing
👥
Focus Groups
Collect qualitative data from customers of varying background through moderated discussion, prompted by sentiment-based statements
SYNTHESIZING DATA
Defining our Users
From our focus group and survey results, we categorized our interviewees on a polarity map which compared attitude and motivation to learn on the axes. From this exercise, we located three distinct user groups that encapsulates the sentiments of potential customers that learn about Home Awareness.
Our personas fall on a spectrum from concerned to excited (left to right below) about Home Awareness. We detailed their attitudes towards Home Awareness helping us uncover the underlying motivations, curiosities, and hesitations influencing their perspectives on the product.
Concerned
Excited
The Skeptical Suspect
Distrustful about accuracy of results and potential health threats.
The Curious Consumer
Interested in available product use cases, but has concerns regarding data privacy.
The Excited Enthusiast
Fan of the Verizon ecosystem but requires high performance to motivative use.
THE CORE PROBLEM
A lack of understanding.
Contrary to current misconceptions, we confirmed with our clients that Home Awareness does none of the expressed concerns — it does not cause health issues, it does not steal data, and it has the potential for many unique use cases that guarantees to enhance one's day-to-day life. However, our research methods showed that little users understand this and have a misunderstanding on Home Awareness. The lack of understanding leads to apprehension, and discourages potential customers from being interested in purchasing. This is a core friction point that is blocking product acceptance.
Therefore, the initial scope's focus on use cases would have little impact on customers — no one is going to care about having more use cases if they are uneasy about the core functionality of the product. In fact, Home Awareness is currently being offered for free but still faced moderate acceptance. Rather, we can increase purchasing behavior by addressing this major obstacle. We have to inform and educate before focusing on monetization.
A PIVOT
Reshaping the scope
With the newfound understanding of the problem, we proposed a shift in the original project scope to our clients during one of our weekly client synchs. By supporting our proposition with concrete research findings and projected impact, our contacts were super welcoming of the new focus, and even agreed us that this was a problem area that the team had noticed and was looking to address. Shoutout to Desirae and Gary, our Verizon contacts!
Don't be afraid to propose changes to the client.
Sometimes, research findings will uncover user pain points that differ from the original scope. Especially when working with a client, it's vital to be transparent and communicate. Using concrete data points can create an effective story, encouraging stakeholders to buy into new ideas. The design process will not always be linear, so it's also important to have a general framework of approach while being flexible to embrace change.
With this new discovery and with approval from our contacts, we decided to reshape our initial "How Might We" question to better frame our problem. Rather than focusing on proposing future product feature ideas, our questions aim to address the immediate issue preventing product acceptance:
HOW MIGHT WE…
help customers feel confident in making informed decisions?
HOW MIGHT WE…
encourage customers to embrace Home Awareness technology?
OUR DESIGN DIRECTION
Let's focus on the needs of one user.
With three unique personas defined from synthesis, we had to be conscious of the limited time we had remaining. From our research above, we recognized that all personas shared the common pain point of a lack of understanding, with each differing to their degree of apprehension. We realized that by focusing on the most skeptical user — The Skeptical Suspect — we can create a minimum viable solution that can address the point points of all three user personas.
Designing for the most skeptical user allows us to address the needs of all identified personas.
By focusing on the user persona that had the most concerns, we can understand the minimum amount of information needed to make informed decisions. When reaching this benchmark, we can ensure the final solution will have enough context to inform all three personas.
SOLUTION IDEATION
Addressing the lowest hanging fruit
Moving forward, we did a session of rapid ideation to quickly generate solution ideas before assessing their potential on a 2x2 Impact v. Effort Matrix. In this context, we defined impact as influence on customer acceptance and defined effort as technical feasibility. From here, we determined that creating a central source of information on the Verizon website would have the most impact with the least amount of effort — our low-hanging fruit. Considering our timeline, we focused on create a newly improved Home Awareness website to serve as a central learning hub for information-seeking potential buyers.
THE FIRST IMPRESSION
It takes 50 milliseconds for users to form opinions about a website.
For Home Awareness, a disruptive technology that uses unfamiliar terminology, it's important that the first impressions of the product feels natural — where the users can focus on learning about the benefits rather than worrying about behind-the-scenes technicalities. According to a study by Google Research, a website's first impression is a crucial moment for capturing people's interests. A fraction of time is all it takes for users to form a "gut feeling," formed by a combination of visual complexity and prototypicality. A website should be visually engaging that speaks to the user's intent, while leveraging existing mental associations to create a familiar experience. Addressing this key touch point is critical in turning curious users into potential buyers.
PROCESS
Audit of the current experience
To begin the process, we evaluated the existing Home Awareness page, which exists as a nested site within the Verizon website. We recognized that the website had various major granular design problems, preventing users (those that even end up finding this website) to finding the information that they need quickly. As a first impression, this website was preventing users from forming a positive impression on the product and discourages acceptance.
No clear call-to-action
Important onboarding and purchasing processes are invisible, preventing information-seeking customers from clicking on important buttons.
Cognitive overload
Poor information hierarchy decreases the scannability of the information, discouraging users from reading through and learning about the product.
Hidden support resources
Key support information regarding set-up and use cases are nested within the experience and are hard to find, discouraging understanding.
Inconsistent visuals
Lack of cohesive visuals and high-quality product photos leaves the viewer unengaged and confused, leaving a negative product impression.
PINPOINTING THE PRODUCT EXPERIENCE
Core Product Principles
After speaking with our Verizon contacts and reviewing the core customer experience pillars of the company, the team defined three product pillars to guide the direction of a reimagined Home Awareness website experience that aligns with larger company initiatives that Verizon is striving to achieve.
Performance
Home Awareness is a high performance solution, with advanced capabilities to effectively improve the customer's core home experiences.
Integrity
The technology and processes behind the product is transparent, so customers feel a sense connection with Verizon as a trusted company.
Accountability
Any potential issues or areas of concern are addressed upfront, so users feel confident in making informed decisions before purchasing.
SITE MAP
Crafting an intentional design
To guide our process, we developed a site map to outline a blueprint for our solution. This allowed us to pinpoint how each section of the website addresses a key user concern located from the user research, as well as create a reference for the user flow and information architecture of our final design solution.
SOLUTION BREAKDOWN
Crafting an informative, breathable
first impression of Home Awareness.
Home Awareness Landing Page
Creating an emotional connection with visitors, making the product feel more personable
Product Use Cases
Showcasing product impact and enhancing user engagement through interactive elements
Getting Started Instructions
Demonstrating the ease of use and streamlining the onboarding process
Frequently Asked Questions
Reducing friction areas and support case volume by providing quick and accessible answers to common questions
Want to learn more? Explore the external help page.
Enhancing credibility by helping users gain a more comprehensive and transparent understanding of the product
Old Experience
New Experience
DESIGN GUIDELINES
Responsive Design
Because we unfortunately were not given access to the design system due to legal complications, we crafted our own design system from scratch by referencing current Verizon platforms to ensure consistency across sites and ease of implementation. Because our solution is accessed on web, we also created a responsive-friendly design for both mobile and tablet users to account for different viewing experiences by potential users.
