Too many separate controls
Users have to move between different apps and device systems to manage everyday tasks.
01
Product Design - 2025
Omvia
Omvia brings smart home controls into one clear interface, helping families manage routines, safety, and everyday devices without jumping between multiple apps.
- Role
- Product Designer, 3-person team
- Contribution
- Led UI design and visual direction; contributed to research, user flows, branding, prototyping, and testing.
- Tools
- Figma, FigJam, Basecamp, Maze
- Timeframe
- Sep 2025 - Jan 2026
- Year
- 2025
01 / The Problem
Smart home technology should make daily life easier, but managing multiple apps, devices, routines, and alerts can quickly become another source of stress.
Important information is easy to miss
Safety and home-status updates can be buried when users need reassurance quickly.
Care can become intrusive
Families need ways to check on loved ones without turning the home into a surveillance system.
The goal
Create one calm, easy-to-use smart home experience that supports everyday routines, remote safety, and caregiving without adding more complexity.
02 / Research
A review of leading smart-home platforms highlighted where strong technical capability still created friction in everyday use.
Google Home
Strength: Strong device integration across a broad smart-home ecosystem.
Opportunity: Routine information and common actions can become buried across multiple layers.
Samsung SmartThings
Strength: Powerful automation and deep control for advanced users.
Opportunity: The technical depth can make everyday tasks harder for less technical users.
Research takeaway
Both products handle device control well, but there was room to make everyday smart-home management feel calmer, clearer, and more reassuring.
Key questions
- How can one interface make everyday home routines easier to manage?
- What information helps people quickly feel confident that home is okay?
- How can wellness checks support caregivers without feeling intrusive?
Research findings
People think in routines, not devices
Observation: Busy households think about moments like school mornings, bedtime, or leaving home rather than individual switches and devices.
Design response: Organize the experience around routines and rooms so everyday tasks feel simpler and more familiar.
Safety information needs to be glanceable
Observation: People checking their home remotely want quick reassurance, but important status information can be difficult to find.
Design response: Make home status and Secure Home controls easy to find, so users can quickly understand what is happening.
Caregiving should not feel like surveillance
Observation: Caregivers want meaningful updates without constantly watching or intruding on a loved one’s privacy.
Design response: Use passive Wellness Checks to provide reassurance without making users feel watched.
03 / From Needs to Solutions
Instead of relying on detailed persona profiles, three recurring user needs were mapped directly to product decisions.
User needPain pointOmvia response
01
Busy household
Everyday routines
Manage a busy home without jumping between apps.
Routines
Room-based dashboard with routines that group everyday actions together.
Turns scattered device controls into one clearer household flow.
02
Remote homeowner
Away from home
Get quick reassurance without digging through the app.
Secure Home
Glanceable home status with a clear Secure Home action.
Makes important safety information easier to understand from a distance.
03
Family caregiver
Supporting a loved one
Know a loved one is safe without intrusive monitoring.
Wellness Checks
Passive Wellness Checks that surface meaningful changes and alerts.
Supports caregiving with reassurance, not surveillance.
04 / Structure
The app was organized around five core areas so users could move between home status, devices, routines, alerts, and settings without digging through nested menus.
05 / Early Design
The low-fidelity stage focused on three things: dashboard hierarchy, five-part navigation, and the routine setup flow.
Onboarding
0102Home Dashboard
Devices
03Routine Setup
Alert
Settings
What this stage helped define
Layout Exploration
Tested how key content, controls, and dashboard cards could be arranged so users can scan the app quickly.
Navigation Structure
The wireframes established the main app areas, making sure users could move between Home, Devices, Routines, Alerts, and Settings easily.
Flow Decisions
This clarified how users would move from setup to everyday control before the final visual style was added.
06 / Visual Direction
The visual direction translated the research into a softer smart-home experience: calm instead of clinical, familiar instead of technical, and reassuring at a glance.
Calm, not clinical
Keep the language clear and the visual cues soft, so the experience feels reassuring rather than technical.
Designed around routines, not devices
Organize the experience around everyday rooms and routines instead of making people manage one device at a time.
Reassurance at a glance
Keep important home, safety, and caregiving information easy to find and understand.
Logo exploration
Why The Home Pulse
The Home Pulse was chosen because it brings the idea of home and wellbeing together more clearly. The house shape makes the product immediately recognizable as a smart-home experience, while the pulse line connects to Omvia’s focus on safety, routines, and Wellness Checks.
The Routine Loop communicated connection and continuity, but the symbol felt more abstract and did not communicate “home” as quickly.
Visual system
Trust Blue
#2E48C8
Key actions and primary UI elements.Calming Lavender
#D5C7F7
Adds a softer, more relaxed feel.Soft Cyan
#65D1E4
Adds freshness and subtle highlights.Clean White
#FFFFFF
Keeps layouts open and breathable.Alert Orange
#FFB937
Highlights important states and actions.UI System
Reusable components were created to keep controls, states, and room-based device management consistent across Omvia.
Moodboard
Visual research focused on interfaces and imagery that felt calm, approachable, and trustworthy rather than highly technical. References were collected around soft colour, rounded forms, clear hierarchy, and subtle status cues to shape Omvia’s soft-tech direction.
07 / Final Experience
The final interface brings the core flows together across onboarding, routines, devices, settings, and alerts, with more space for the product itself to take focus.
Sign In / Onboarding
Omvia guides users from brand introduction and setup to secure sign in.
Brand Entry
A calm first screen introduces the brand before asking users to act.
Guided Setup
Setup is explained step by step without overwhelming users.
Secure Access
Login and Face ID provide quick, secure entry.
Brand Entry
Welcome
User Need
Setup
Sign In
Recommended Routine
Recommended routines move users from setup and customization to wellness checks and activation.
Recommended Routine
Ready-made routines group multiple device actions into one tap.
Custom Routine Builder
Create routines around time, motion, or voice.
Wellness Triggers
Add simple safety checks to support loved ones discreetly.
Easy Control
Turn routines on, edit them, or remove them quickly.
Routine Hub
Morning Rush
Routine Detail
Triggers
Wellness Setup
Room Selection
Schedule
Review
Active
Devices
Room-based controls make it easier to view, manage, and secure connected devices from one place.
Room-Based Control
Manage connected devices by room instead of one at a time.
Secure Home
Secure the entire home from one clear action.
Grid View
Active Controls
List View
Settings
Settings brings account security, home access, voice assistants, and privacy into one place.
Home Access Management
Manage family, guest, and caregiver access from one place.
Privacy & Security
Keep security, permissions, and personal information easy to manage.
Settings Home
Voice Assistant
Security
Access
Password
Account Details
Alert
The alert flow helps users understand what is happening at home, judge urgency quickly, and respond without stress.
Wellness Alerts
Important updates are delivered calmly, without making the experience feel invasive.
Quick Actions
The alert detail screen gives users immediate next steps, such as calling a loved one.
Alert
Respond
08 / Testing
Maze testing with 20 participants focused on three high-priority tasks: securing the home remotely, responding to a caregiver alert, and activating a routine.
Task
You’re at the airport and forgot to lock up. Find your devices and secure the home in under 5 seconds.
92%
Up from 65%
Task
You receive an alert about your parents’ morning activity. Check how urgent it is and make a quick call.
100%
Up from 80%
Task
It’s a busy morning. Go to routines and activate the Morning Rush routine in under 4 seconds.
100%
Up from 70%
Key Feedback
“I find it hard to manage my mom’s safety alerts. The text is difficult to read on the move, and since all alerts look kind of the same, I can’t quickly tell what’s urgent.”
“I finished setting up my devices and tapped Go to Home, but was taken to a login screen. It felt confusing.”
“The Secure Home button at the top feels a bit intimidating. I’m worried I might tap it by accident and shut everything down.”
Feedback was grouped into three design priorities:
01 Readability + Alert Priority02 Clearer Setup Progress03 Safer Secure Home Action
09 / What Changed
Testing led to three direct changes: clearer alert priority, clearer setup language, and a safer Secure Home action.
Issue 01
Alert priority and status information were hard to scan
Users needed clearer home-status information and a better way to distinguish urgent alerts. The revised design improved status styling and used colour to make urgent updates easier to spot.
01
01
02
02Issue 02
Setup completion was unclear
“Go to Home” suggested setup was finished when it was not. Changing the CTA to “Complete Setup” made the next step clearer.
03
03Issue 03
Secure Home needed clearer reassurance
Users worried about triggering Secure Home accidentally. Moving the action lower and adding confirmation made it feel safer and more deliberate.
04
0410 / Outcome
Omvia evolved into a clearer smart-home experience centered on routines, reassurance, and everyday usability. Testing helped simplify key actions, strengthen alert hierarchy, and make safety controls easier to understand.
View Prototype ↗Omvia Case Study
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by Esther Odeyemi