The Problem: Fermentation is the least consistent phase of a customer’s experience with Pico. Surveys and forum research showed that knowing when a beer is “done” was a pain point, especially for those new to brewing.
Our solution to the problem of fermentation was PicoFerm, a fermentation monitor that would provide users with insight into the progress of their beer. I served in a hybrid role as UX Designer and Product Manager for PicoFerm. This meant leading our design, development and engineering teams to meet overall product goals and production timelines, while also assuming responsibility for designing and testing device behavior, hardware UI, instructional content, and the setup and pairing process.
Our first step in the firmware development phase was to design the state machine that governs PicoFerm’s behavior. I worked closely with our Technical Lead to map out basic functionality for a prototype. I also revised the indicator light patterns on the hardware UI to clarify various operational and error states.
A major challenge of IoT devices is the setup and connection with local networks, particularly for devices like PicoFerm with no graphical UI. I designed a setup, account association, and hand-off process that would make this quick and intuitive for our customers.
Seventy percent of our users pair PicoFerm via a mobile browser. We optimized the final design for the mobile experience and ported these styles to the desktop experience.
The hand off user flow I designed had a significant impact on the quality of the user experience for PicoFerm. Customer service tickets related to the setup and pairing process were reduced nearly tenfold, falling from an average of 125 per month to 10 after we deployed version 2.0.
I wanted the desktop UI to mirror the experience of BrewPulse (our mobile application) to reinforce brand unity across all customer touchpoints. I worked with our in-house Design team to create early prototypes and approved final designs.
I generated most of the support documentation and instructional content for PicoFerm. I used InDesign to create the layout for the manuals. Below are a few sample pages from the downloadable PDF manual.