PROJECT: CANARY
Challenge: As a Product Management and Operations Intern this summer I was tasked with defining the user experience for a new Canary product that would be Apple HomeKit compatible. My goal over the course of a month and a half was to define a vision for this experience, write a product requirements document, and gain alignment with the key stakeholders in our organization.
Process: I approached this problem with a broad lens, integrating input from every department in our organization:
- Vision definition: I sat down with the head of product, design, and marketing to align on a product vision. HomeKit was extremely exciting for the organization, but we also wanted to make sure we continued to drive value via our own application.
- Competitive analysis: I conducted competitive research by buying other Apple HomeKit compatible devices to understand what existing HomeKit users experienced in the platform.
- Engineering deep-dive: iOS 10 came with many restrictions from a development perspective and so I sat with our lead iOS engineer to understand the details of what was possible and impossible.
- Customer needs: I sat with the customer experience team to understand outstanding requests from our current customers. Apple HomeKit integration was a customer driven decision for the company and we wanted to understand who they were and why they were excited in order to drive the user stories.
- Wire-framing: The setup experience would change significantly with HomeKit capability, and so I created some low-fidelity wireframe mockups and reviewed them with our UX Design team to create a seamless experience.
Results: I created, presented, and achieved alignment on a full product requirements document that would be executed later in the year. With my new HomeKit expertise, I also ran multiple demo sessions to ensure others in the organization were familiar with HomeKit before I left for the summer.