Digital Keys Application

Course Work
Image displaying the screenshots of 3 UI screens of the Digital Keys application
Project Duration
October 2020 - December 2020
Team Members
This school project team consisted of seven members, out of whom four of us (Federico, Isabella, Moa and I) were responsible for the UI/UX design of the application.
EXPECTED OUTCOME
We were aiming to answer the following research question: How can the “sharing digital key” feature in a mobile application to a smart lock system be designed so that the user feels safe?
Tools Used
I primarily used Figma for creating the wireframes and designs

Project Description

Our research aimed at exploring the user experience of sharing a digital key in a mobile application and how design can enhance the feeling of safety and security.

My role

Working together with 3 other group members, I was responsible for designing the mobile application.

What was my impact?

Designed a few screens of the application which were used in the surveys to answer our research question.

Research

User Survey

Purpose of the survey was to gather the different problems that users could think of or have experienced while sharing their digital keys

  • ‘Feeling unsafe while sharing’ was a common problem found in the responses
  • ‘Receivers of the digital keys having access longer than intended” was another problem that was highlighted
  • ‘Forgetting who had access and for how long’ was also a problem that we felt was important to consider in the designs

Design

Since we followed an iterative design process, we kept these survey results in mind and made the necessary changes to the high-fidelity wireframes in order to ensure that the application would invoke a feeling of safety for the users.

Home page UI
Home Page

Guest Screen UI
Guests Screen

History Screen
History

Other Screens

No items found.
Lock Screen displaying the notification
Invite Screen
Guest Screen
Select Lock screen
No items found.

Post Design Research

Feedback Survey

  • The designs were presented to the same participants, that took part in the user survey, and their thoughts and feedback were noted.
  • Clear navigation while sharing the keys, overview of the current guests and history of all the guest activity were the features that they felt could address most of their concerns.
  • A couple of them highlighted that ‘Disabling all accesses’ could be considered as a crucial feature of the application, but they felt it was a bit hidden within the application.
  • Despite these features, few users were still concerned about the safety of sharing a digital key with a guest who needs to use their apartment for a limited time (for example: a plumber, an electrician, etc)
No items found.
Before the Redesign
After the Redesign
No items found.

Result

  • The digital keys application that we designed were perceived as safe with the majority of our sample user set.
  • Few of the users concerns, mainly around sharing a digital key for a temporary guest, were not fully accounted for in this project.

What could I have done differently?

I was not too involved in the research steps of the project since the other three team members had taken responsibility for that. Looking back, I feel like I could have delved more into the survey and analysis that was conducted as it would have been beneficial for me in my future projects.

Learnings

Some key takeaways from this project are:

  • We did not consider some of edge cases when designing the screens for the application. I took this learning with me in future projects as these edge cases, at times, can have a significant impact on the rest of the project.
  • This whole project took place fully remotely since it was around the covid pandemic. The experience gave me the confidence to handle fully remote projects.

Conclusion

Considering the initial survey feedback, we designed the digital keys application to be secure and intuitive. This approach garnered positive feedback during the research phase when testing the design.

Other Projects

IntroResearchDesignConclusion