Designing Connected Products

Chapter 7. Embedded Device Design

BY MARTIN CHARLIER

This chapter is about the design of physical objects in the Internet of Things. In particular, the devices users interact with and that have embedded electronics. Compared to web or mobile UX design, thinking about physical objects requires an appreciation for some fundamental differences.

When reading or hearing about hardware startups, you’ll often hear that “hardware is hard.” This conclusion speaks to those fundamental differences to software. Designing software revolves around the ability to release early, iterate continuously, and easily address a global market. Hardware involves high upfront costs, can’t change once manufactured, and every market requires individual due diligence.

In this chapter, we will look at some of the basics of designing physical objects, what’s important to consider when designing physical connected objects, and how this is relevant to UX designers of an Internet of Things product.

This chapter introduces:

• Ways to think about physical object design with a focus on IoT (An Introduction to Thinking About Physical Objects in IoT)

• The differences between digital UX and making physical products (Making Stuff: Differences to UX)

• The industrial design process (Essentials of the Design Process)

• The different facets of physical devices and their roles in creating great connected products (Three Faces of a Physical Product)

This chapter addresses the following issues:

• Why physical device design is about more than usability ...