Verizon Smart Hub – Case Study

Summary

I led the Smart Hub experience from concept to commercialization—defining first-run setup across device, app, and web; aligning portfolio requirements; and establishing patterns for remote management. The result: a launched product, refreshed portfolio UX, and a durable revenue stream.

Experience design approach used on Smart Hub — Experience design approach: research → define → design → verify.

Note: Excerpts are intentionally reduced to protect IP.

Context & Challenge

The opportunity: expand a connected-home portfolio with a smart router that unifies voice, automation, and secure remote control. We needed one coherent first-run experience, clear requirements for device and app, and a path to scale across the portfolio without introducing risk.

Approach

Discover & Align

I benchmarked the competitive landscape, identified target segments and personas, and socialized a future vision for remote control of an IoT ecosystem—anchoring the cross-functional plan and schedule.

Mobile app vision for remote home control — Mobile app vision (linked PDF) used to align leadership on feasibility.

UX workstream schedule — UX activity timeline and cross-functional dependencies.

Hardware ecosystem concept sketch — Early hardware ecosystem sketch informing requirements.

Competitive landscape review — Competitive analysis to identify UX opportunities.

Target segment personas — Target segments and persona identification.

Design & Prototype

I evolved device and interface concepts with Industrial Design, then translated portfolio requirements into concrete UX specs—IA, interaction models, and first-run flows for device, app, and web—validating through iterative prototypes.

Device concept illustration and UI controls — Device concept and on-device UI control model (linked PDF).

Build & Govern

I formalized requirements with the product line manager and engineering—capturing users, use cases, and device/web UX requirements as the single source of truth. This governed scope, prevented regressions, and seeded QA.

Users and use cases requirements frame — Users & use cases framing to support portfolio decisions.

Draft experience requirements formed from portfolio baselines.

Web controls UX requirements — Web controls and management UX requirements.

Test & Iterate

I mapped end-to-end flows and service touchpoints (network, device, app), then iterated the first-run experience. When marketing upgraded the hardware to a high-resolution color display, I redesigned on-device flows and expanded branching paths to leverage the new capability.

Experience flow and service touchpoints — Experience flows and early service blueprinting (error handling included).

App install flow (low-res device variant) — Initial app install flow for low-res display hardware (linked PDF).

App setup flow (high-res color display) — Revised setup flow for high-res color display (linked PDF).

Finalized first-run setup via mobile device — Finalized, user-verified first-run via mobile.

Finalized first-run setup via web — Finalized, user-verified first-run via web.

Results & Impact

Commercial launch after multi-round user testing, QA, and network validation.
Recurring revenue stream in the $100Ms and an expanded device portfolio.
Portfolio UX refresh and over-the-air management patterns established.