Human-centered design and smart homes:How to study and design for the home experience?

The focus of this chapter is on designing for smart homes. The perspective will be user-driven design research. The chapter starts with a context analysis of the home environment. This analysis shows that, from a user perspective, home is about emotions and not about the physical house with all its smart applications. It is this “home experience” designers have to design for. The core of the chapter consists of the description of three big challenges that modern designers (need to) face when designing or studying smart home environments. These challenges are linked to existing and future design paradigms. The following challenges are addressed: (1) What makes a worthwhile user experience? (2) How to design for user experience? (3) How to design for user experiences that can be seamlessly integrated in everyday life? The chapter concludes with a summary of the main insights that emerge from current design research practice facing these challenges.