Design Roles

fuseproject - Industrial Design

Matt Weldon - UX Manager

• Conceived and conducted ID discoverability study with UXR

• Managed camera angle study

• Co-designed installation guides

Jennifer McCormick - UXR Contractor

• Ran ID discoverability study

• Provided study readout and videos

Leslie Mathews - UX Designer

• Performed camera angle study + readout

• Co-designed installation guides

Kevin Lessy - UX Designer

• Assisted with camera angle study

August Doorbell Cam / Keypad Overview (1st Generation)

The the 1st generation August Doorbell Cam + Smart Keypad was designed with the desire for a customer to install them side-by-side at the customer’s front door. My team was unfortunately not involved in the ID phase, and due to a very aggressive development schedule we were essentially handed these devices when it was too late to rethink any of the design decisions.

Usability Concerns

I immediately had some concerns about the physical design.

Initial “Study”

I expressed strong concerns that the doorbell, with its unorthodox look and lack of clear affordance, would not be discoverable by a stranger arriving at a user’s home or business.

The team promised to run usability tests and a few days later, sent this video and claimed that my concerns were unwarranted.

I did not find the results or methodology of this test to be convincing.

Study #1: The ID Discoverability Study

I was able to secure budget to hire Jennifer McCormick, an excellent and meticulous user researcher, to help me put together a study where users would encounter these devices in a real-world scenario, with no prior information about the product.

We installed a prototype at an airbnb in Palo Alto. Recruited users were given the following instructions:

• “Help us test a new product”

• “Come to X address at the appointment time. Let us know when you arrive”

• Users could knock, call / text us, or interact with the doorbell / keypad, though we did not tell them which option to choose

Findings

(video compiled by Jennifer McCormick)

Many users really struggled to understand the Doorbell Cam. The doorbell usually either was not recognized or was perceived to be part of a security system that the owner, not a visitor, was meant to interact with.

Discoverability Study Outcome

There were high-level stakeholders with a strong interest in having customers install the two devices side-by-side. However it was hard to deny the results of this study, and based on these findings, our team was able go in a different direction in the installation guide.

Study #2: Camera Angle Study

The Doorbell Cam’s actual camera was fairly unorthodox as doorbell cameras go. Competitor products typically went with a landscape 16:9 format and ultra-wide angle lens to capture the largest possible field of view.

However, the Doorbell Cam came with a (roughly) 3:4 portrait aspect ratio and a less dramatic wide angle. In theory this could make for a better view of the person at the door, but only if the camera angle was close to perfect.

The Wedge

The Doorbell Cam needed to be physically attached to existing doorbell wiring in order to power on. Given the narrower field of vision of the camera and the fact that customers would not have any control over the current door-to-doorbell orientation of their home, an optional “back wedge” was provided in the box.

Leslie Mathews were in charge of creating the installation and setup guides for this product and we needed to give users guidance on whether they should use the wedge or not. I asked Leslie to do an internal study of the camera field of view with hte question: How close does the doorbell need to be to the door before you don’t need the wedge anymore?

Findings

As it turned out… the camera angle was so narrow that essentially everyone needed the wedge in order to tilt the camera to keep the visitor’s face in view. We adjusted the installation instructions accordingly.

Outcome

Honestly… the 1st gen August Doorbell Cam was a product that probably should never have been shipped to customers. It was difficult to install and it had fundamental flaws with its camera angle and discoverability. But our studies managed to at least allow us to instruct users to install the device with the highest possible chance of success, and provide a baseline set of data to inform future generations of the product.

2019: August’s internal UX team finally redesigned the doorbell ID and released the August View, with a much clearer doorbell affordance and footprint, and a wider camera angle.