Luma is a mesh WiFi system that gives users complete coverage, security and control over their home or office network. While there, I worked very closely with the founder and product manager to conduct user research, set priorities and design the overall product and service offering for the next version of Luma.

Along with other initiatives such as the coverage test app, our primary focus for the app was to have data (qualitative and quantitative) inform the next version.

The Approach

Usability Evaluation

Along with other measures, I conducted a quick, high-level usability evaluation on the existing application. This method allowed the team to get a baseline understanding of where the application fell when a set of heuristics have been applied. We learned that several areas could be improved, specifically the setup experience.

"App Map" Comparison

Comparing the user flow with competing offerings from Google and Eero gave us a high-level idea of the steps involved with the setup process. The number of steps involved did not directly tie to a poor experience, however, by understanding this it gave us a clue into how important guidance was during the setup process.

Field Studies

To get a thorough understanding of the pain points that users have during setup we conducted field studies by visiting nearly a dozen potential customers' homes. We provided the user with a 3-Pack of Lumas and observed as they set up the system in their homes. We focused on the following steps:

1. Unboxing Experience

2. Decision of where to place the gateway

3. Placing and setting up second luma

4. Placing and setting up third luma

5. Time

Takeaway's

We learned several things during our field studies:

Unboxing Experience

There is a step where the user needs to pull out their phone and download the application. Due to the placement of the one-page instruction guide this seemed to have broke the "flow" as the user typically had to step away to retrieve their phone. A recommendation was to re-think the unboxing experience by determining ways in how we could instruct the user to download the mobile app prior to un-boxing.

Placing the Gateway

Every user placed the gateway in their living room, near or on their entertainment console. We observed as the user's would weave through the wires, knock down their existing modem and unplug wires to make way for the gateway. This step varied in time for each person depending on how much equipment they had.

Setting up Luma 2 and 3

After setting up the initial gateway, the user was then instructed to continue the process of setting up the other two Luma's. Almost every time, the user would have issues finding a good place for this as it really depended on the layout and how the homeowner decorated their home. On top of that, for optimal performance, the Luma's had to be no more than 40 feet apart. For the users that didn't have a problem with placement, setup was a breeze. We found that once there was an issue with the placement of the second or third Luma, the setup process time multiplied as they would have re-locate the Luma and try again.

A key takeaway here was to consider this scenario being fairly common and providing better guidance around this particular use case. From a design perspective, the recommendation was to provide better illustrations and instruction with a "fallback" to get in touch with support within the mobile app setup experience.

Overall, we found that there were no big issues aside from the points above. This gave us some directive on what the next iteration would potentially look like.

Customer Journey Map

Armed with a good amount of data and research insights, we mapped out an entire end-to-end journey which starts with a prospective customer learning about the concept of Mesh WiFi and ends with them as a customer contacting support. This allowed for us to pin point any challenges and opportunities throughout the entire journey.

Mapping the Common User Task Flows

Visual UI Design

Outcome

Overall, the exploration for the next version of the mobile app was a success in that we were able to inform every change based on data. For a startup with a tight timeline and limited funding, we managed to use the leanest methods of gathering information and quickly getting to something tangible that we would later ship.

Luma was eventually acquired by First Alert.