HAVEN.
Scope
Project
Role
Year
A case study for a completely hands on startup project.
My involvement in this project was lead, and perform all design. I designed everything you see - Brand Identity, Industrial Design, Digital Product Design, Product Pitch - ultimately giving way to a new Product Vision.
Designing HAVEN - a Human Machine Interface for the Autonomous Home Platform - was both incredibly challenging and a joy. In this project I had to imagine how families could interact with a learning agent that “lived” at the threshold of their homes.
How do you design with AI? What form should it take? How do you interact with it? How does it know you? How do you benefit from it?
Designing HAVEN
Problem / Challenges
Why do we arm Home Alarms? Only to then forget passwords when we come home. Why do we pay so much, to get such little value? Is there a way to rethink the security space? What if we could upgrade a home’s outdated security panel with an at-edge AI-based platform to automate security?
A small stealth start-up had already begun to answer these questions. They were on the path to de-risk the technology stack, and to build out a proof of concept. This was a veteran group of product and technologists - they knew a thing or two about building for the unknown.
Now they needed a way of humanizing this technology through design. They needed a compelling product design to accompany their Autonomous Home Platform. Something to extend their vision and to share with investors.
I joined this stealth startup as a solo designer - as head of design - to deliver a speculative design for this next-generation product.
Actions
This product was ambitious, and the team was ready to take on an entirely new market. I put into play a series of design initiatives to understand the space, and to propose new outcomes.
Design Leadership
Design Language + Design Systems
Creative/Design Direction & Oversight
Design Innovation Program
Discovery - Contextualize Problem
Diverge - Ideate & Create
Converge - Refine & Decide
Visioning - Framing Innovation & IP
Product Design
Design Research - Story Mapping
Concept Design
ID Concept Design
IA + Wireframes + Interaction Design
Outcomes
Acting as a design studio of one, I worked closely with seasoned founders to conceptualize the Brand, ID, and both Physical and Digital Products. This was my first foray into understanding how to design with AI.
The following highlight the work I created through this engagement:
Product Brand - HAVEN
Communication System
Product Strategy + Feature Management
Marketing Message
VC Pitch Presentations
Industrial Design
Design Research
Conceptual ID Design
HAVEN Console + Brain ID
Conceptual Product Design
Product Scenario Design
Design Langage
Interaction Design
Product Innovation & Vision
Impact
The work I performed directly shaped the vision of the product and provided the startup with enough collateral to shop it for investment. My work contributed to getting the company and technology acquired.
The Stealth Startup was acquired by a KATERRA
HAVEN Product Vision
The Design Story always begins with deep immersion into the space.
Here is the beginning of the design story. It always starts with deep immersion into the space, needs, opportunities, users and product goals. The following slides will paint the picture of the journey, and shed light on how this product was crafted.
This project illustrates the intentionality and effort that is needed to design for the near-future. It never saw the light of day but that is the risk one faces when bringing new visions to life. Often too early, never too late.
Signal
How do you create value in a project that has so many competing needs? Carefully prioritizing the essential activities that are core to the product, while planting seeds for future work. This requires identifying signals inherent in the technology, context, and usage scenarios.
Unfolding Complexity
Every project starts with Design Immersion. This is the time to ask questions, understand constraints, and organize around activities that become force multipliers - and create momentum for the project. How can the work you do now create value and empower others?
