For - Havells/Lloyd | Role - Physical UX | Timeline - December 2021 to February 2022 | Status - Prototype
Context - The AC market in India is set to see a 17% year on year increase in sales. The overall number of air-conditioner units in Southeast Asia could rise from 40 million units in 2017 to 300 million units in 2040 [iea.org].
So, the main point of interaction for an increasingly important appliance remains largely under designed and the design team at Havells saw this as good opportunity to add value to the AC experience by redesigning their remotes.
Current Lloyd AC remote
Button layout guide
Designing the Interface
We had a brainstorming session, at the end of which, we had 4 concepts that all focused on different areas. In the first concept we used a vertical screen so that it mirrored the button layout, the thought behind it was to decrease the disconnect between the visuals on the display and the buttons. The second and third concepts were more like traditional and focused on creating a simple and user friendly interface with minimal changes to the internal components. In the final concept, we explored a remote design that did away with the screen entirely, and used LED's next to each button to convey their on/off state.
To test these concepts out on users, we used a hybrid approach, displaying an interactive prototype and a physical cardboard mock-up alongside it to test out various remote layouts. We evaluated the 4 concepts on the basis of viability, feasibility and usability. We decided to go forward with concept B and C for the ID phase.
Industrial Design
Based on the research we focused on designing a remote easy to use in low visibility and comfortable to hold and use. Key considerations were - Asymmetric form so that orientation of the remote is obvious, large primary buttons with recognizable shapes to make night time use easy.
