Designing with Data: A Case Study

TL;DR

This paper explores how a commercial design team uses IoT sensor data from smart thermostats to prototype an advice-giving chatbot, providing practical insights into secondary service design and chatbot development.

Contribution

It presents a case study on integrating IoT data into chatbot prototyping, highlighting innovative design methods in an underexplored area.

Findings

Effective data ordering enhances chatbot interactions

Collaborative design improves prototype relevance

Insights into secondary service design processes

Abstract

As the Internet of Things continues to take hold in the commercial world, the teams designing these new technologies are constantly evolving and turning their hand to uncharted territory. This is especially key within the field of secondary service design as businesses attempt to utilize and find value in the sensor data being produced by connected products. This paper discusses the ways in which a commercial design team use smart thermostat data to prototype an advice-giving chatbot. The team collaborate to produce a chat sequence through careful ordering of data & reasoning about customer reactions. The paper contributes important insights into design methods being used in practice within the under researched areas of chatbot prototyping and secondary service design.