6 months / Launched / 1 UXUI Director / 8 UXUI Designers
LG Electronics, renowned for its strong product reputation and sales, especially in Korea, faces intense global competition in the smart home IoT market. As of 2023, the LG ThinQ app has achieved over 10 million downloads worldwide, highlighting its significant presence. Despite LG's solid market share in electronics, the objective was to revitalize ThinQ with a new concept that not only caters to various business parties and providers but also aligns with LG's strategy to increase its market share in smart home electronics. This required a clear, user-friendly UX/UI with a distinct value proposition, making the app not just a control interface but a crucial part of LG's smart home ecosystem. This strategic redesign aimed to leverage the substantial user base and enhance engagement, ensuring LG ThinQ remains at the forefront of smart home technology.
The Challenge
Despite the potential in the smart home market, the LG ThinQ app struggled with a cluttered UX/UI, burdened by legacy demands from various business departments. To address this, we focused on streamlining the app’s structure from a user-centric perspective while leveraging LG’s strengths in smart home technology.
The project aimed to reorient LG ThinQ's UX/UI toward a user-centered approach, simplifying the interface to improve usability and align with modern user expectations. This redesign was crucial for enhancing the app’s functionality and ensuring it supports LG's goals in the competitive smart home market.
Process to Tackle the Challenge
1. Efficient User Research Execution
Collaborated with three junior designers to conduct user research within a tight 18-day deadline. We visited 9 households, engaging in shadowing and interviews to understand user interactions with smart home appliances and apps. The process involved building hypotheses, user segmentation, interview planning, contextual inquiry and in-depth interviews.
2. Deriving UX/UI Direction from Usage Patterns
Utilized Indie Young’s mental model framework to analyze usage patterns of smart home appliance users. This involved synthesizing a large volume of user data to establish clear usage patterns for three main user groups, guiding the UX/UI direction for LG ThinQ.
3. Navigational Redesign and Feature Prioritization
Focused on redefining the app's navigation and information architecture based on user usage patterns. Conducted comparative studies of tab navigation in Home IoT and other apps, and integrated these insights with our research findings. This involved workshops with the UX/UI design team to prioritize features and functions for each menu.
4. Designing the 'Discover' Menu
Actively participated in designing the 'Discover' tab, which serves as a central hub for content and services in the ThinQ app. The aim was to create a personalized content exploration experience for users, ensuring an efficient and user-friendly interface.
Impact & Outcome
• Conceptual Foundation to Global User Impact: The journey from concept to launch of the LG ThinQ app showcases our team's collaborative dynamism. In phase 1, we established a solid foundation through user research, developed a comprehensive Information Architecture (IA), and outlined scalable features for an initial set of 6 main appliances. Our collective efforts not only transitioned the project from an idea to a product but also charted the course for its expansion. The groundwork laid by our team now benefits all global users of LG Electronics smart devices and their corresponding app, significantly enhancing their interaction with smart home technology.
• Efficient User Research Execution: I led a team of three junior designers in a focused user research initiative, completed within a challenging 18-day timeframe. Our deep dive into the interactions between users and smart appliances resulted in a strategic overhaul of the app’s navigation system, setting a new benchmark for user-driven design within the LG ecosystem. This initiative was instrumental in revamping the app, making it more intuitive and aligned with user expectations.
• Discovery Experience Design: Working closely with a UI designer, the 'Discover' menu became a testament to our iterative design process. Through ongoing reference research, discussion, prototyping, and frequent iterations, we addressed complex business requirements to streamline the content discovery experience. This effort, tailored to unify content from various departments into a cohesive and personalized user interface, played a crucial role in elevating user engagement and satisfaction across the LG ThinQ app.
Conclusion
Through my involvement in the LG ThinQ Home IoT App project, I gained valuable insights into the importance of user-centered design in IoT applications. My role in conducting thorough research, redefining app navigation and designing key features contributed significantly to enhancing the app’s functionality and user experience.