Mobile Key
Designing an app that makes entering shared living spaces more convenient and efficient, while maintaining a secure home using NFC technology
Duration
2 Weeks
Tools
Figma
Team
Solo
Background
In college, most students live in shared living spaces such as apartments and dormitories. These buildings use keycards, key fobs, and metal keys to unlock doors. However, these types of keys can be annoying to use and easy to lose. Thus, I wanted to design a new digital method for unlocking doors that would make the process more efficient and simple for college students.
Methodology
01. Project Overview
In the fall of my 3rd year of college, I was inspired to undertake a personal project that tackled the many issues associated with using physical keys. Last semester, the keys to my apartment fell out of my coat pocket in a lecture hall and I had no idea until I went back to my unit at the end of the day. Since the University was closed at this point, I could only wait until tomorrow morning to retrace my steps and try and find my keys. Thankfully, my roommates were able to let me inside and I was able to locate my keys the next day, but I remember feeling incredibly worried. When I told my friends about this experience, many of them recounted times where they have locked themselves out in the middle of the night or lost their keys. I was inspired to turn these conversations into interviews and use them to design a technology that can prevent these issues from happening.
Role
UX Designer
I followed the double diamond design process.
02. Exploratory Interviews
I interviewed 5 college students about their experiences with using physical keys in shared living spaces. My objective for these interviews was to discover the various challenges college students in shared living spaces face when using and keeping track of physical keys. My inclusion criteria was college students aged 18-25 who live or lived in shared living spaces (apartments and dorms) and has experience with all kinds of keys (metal, card, fob).
Interview Structure
For these interviews, I created an interview script with 7 parts (introduction, warm up, general issues, deep focus, mapping generative method, retrospective, and wrap up).
01
In the introduction I stated the purpose of the interview and study, outlined the entire interview, asked for permission to record, and consent to proceed.
🗣️ Introduction
02
I asked questions about the participants themselves and their living situations to ease into the discussion. I wanted to know a bit about their background in college and any initial thoughts they have on the topic.
“Could you share a bit about your current and past living situations in college?”
🏡 Warm Up
03
After the warm up questions, I then moved on to ask about how they felt overall about physical keys. I wanted to learn about any general experiences, attitudes, and expectations.
“What are your thoughts on metal keys? How about key cards and fobs?”
🔑 General Issues
“What would you expect from a digital key?”
04
Now it is time to narrow in and obtain detailed feedback on the user experience with physical keys as well as understand in depth feedback on how a digital key would affect the experience of entering their apartment.
“What in your opinion led to you misplacing your keys? How did you feel?”
💭 Deep Focus
All participants dislike metal keys for a variety of reasons. The main one is that metal keys are difficult to use because it is near impossible to judge which way to insert the key into the hole and they can be hard to twist because the lock is too tight. One participant claimed that at her old apartment, her metal key often got stuck inside the lock and it hurt her hand to pull out. Additionally, metal keys are clunky to take out and use, difficult to spot in a room, and easy to leave behind.
“How do you keep track of your keys?”
“How do you think a digital key would impact this experience?”
05
I wanted to do a quick mapping activity to learn more about the participant’s physical keys and living situation. I asked them to quickly map out all the locks in their living space (e.g. unit door, room door, bathroom, mailbox) as well as where they keep their keys.
“Why do you keep your keys here”
🗺️ Mapping Generative Method
“What are your thoughts on having x amount of locks?”
06
This part serves for evaluation in a broader context and unravelling the impact of the deep focus discussion. I wanted to understand how keys relate to their college life as a whole.
“How has (insert key experience) impacted your lifestyle as a college student?”
🎒 Retrospective
07
I conclude the interview and ask if the participant has any final thoughts they have not shared yet related to the discussion. This was an opportunity for them to share anything.
🙋 Wrap Up
Thematic Analysis
🔑 Metal keys are inefficient and easy to misplace
After the user interviews, I coded the transcripts and my notes to create an affinity diagram. This allows me to find major patterns and themes among all participants.
💳 Keycards are efficient but easiest to misplace
All participants with keycards have experienced multiple lock outs every month. They all say it is difficult to locate keycards in a room. However, they do note that keycards are convenient to tap on a lock and to slide into a wallet.
🔖 Fobs are semi efficient and easy to misplace
All participants with fobs have experience at least one lock out. Participants note that fobs sometimes do not work the first try and like metal keys are easy to lose and clunky to take out. However, fobs are convenient to tap on a lock.
🏡 Key management is difficult and inconsistent
Based on the mapping activity, keys get thrown around the room and left in many different places. It is hard for college students to maintain a specific spot to storing keys for a multitude of reasons but primarily stress and rushing.
👫 Borrowing and lending keys is inconvenient
All participants agree that it is annoying to go out of one’s way to have to borrow and return a key. Some participants wish it was easier to lend a key to have a friend grab their key and enter into the apartment without them.
😮💨 Taking keys out and using them is a hassle
Often times college students hands are full with school related materials, groceries, takeout, etc. so it is frustrating to have to search for their keys in their backpack while dropping every thing in their hands onto the ground.
🤬 It feels awful to lose keys and terrible to bother others for help
Many participants claim that they felt stressed, angry, sad and guilty whenever they lost their keys or locked themselves out. All participants stated that they did not like having to bother someone else like their roommate or an RA to help them get inside and can ruin a roommate relationship.
🔒 Security concerns with physical keys
Many participants voiced concerns about keys being duplicated or easily stolen. Many participants said that they leave their doors unlocked to prevent needing to use their keys all the time and allow for friends to enter at any time.
⏱️ Expect digital keys to be super simple
Many participants expect that a digital key would be extremely easy to open, access, and tap to use. They do not was any complex instructions that take more than a few seconds to unlock a door.
🚪 Digital keys would prevent lock outs
All participants claimed that they rarely misplace their phones and never lose them. Thus, they all believed that a digital key would prevent lock outs because they are tied to their phones.
03. User Definition
After the exploratory interviews, I then developed a user persona of the prototypical college student housed in a shared living space. I also created three journey maps for the persona. The purpose of these deliverables is to define the user and empathize with their experiences.
User Persona
Meet Lucas! This is my user persona that represents my target audience's needs, motivations, goals, and frustrations. My persona is based on the findings from the user interviews and serves to help me better understand and empathize with the prototypical user.
Journey Maps
After making the user persona, I then designed three user journey maps to outline the main three scenarios associated with unlocking and locking a door. I outlined every action the persona takes as well as the emotions they experience and the pain points. The first scenario is Lucas leaving his apartment for class. The second scenario is Lucas coming home to his apartment after grocery shopping. The last scenario is Lucas experiencing a lock out.
04. Solution
The solution I landed on is a multi-factor authentication digital key located on the mobile phone. Based on the user persona and journey map, it is clear that college students need 1) an efficient and easy method to enter their living space, 2) prevention from misplacing their keys and being locked out, 3) access to resources to easily recover from a lockout, and 4) keep the users and their living spaces secure. As a result, I propose that a mobile app where users can simply tap into their homes will mitigate any pain points surrounding the usage of physical keys. This is because mobile phones, according to the interviews, are less susceptible to and easier to recover from loss. The tapping method is also similar to keyfobs and tap-to-pay technology, which every college student is familiar with.
Information Architecture
I started off by planning the information architecture of this app by brainstorming the necessary features the app needs to best support its user and organizing that information it into distinct pages.
05. Prototyping
I started working on the solution by brainstorming different mobile screen interfaces. I then worked on a low fidelity prototypes to quickly test and then designed a high fidelity prototype that is both beautiful and functional.
Sketching
I used the Crazy 8s method to brainstorm various mobile screen interfaces. This method allows me to think of at least 8 different screen designs for every unique page. The first idea that comes up is often the least innovative, so it is important sketch as many different possibilities before narrowing in and committing to an idea. This is apart of the divergent design thinking process.
Low Fidelity Prototype
I started by translating the sketches into a low fidelity prototype. The low fidelity prototype serves to ensure usability and determine the basic layout of each frame. This was especially important because I wanted to make sure that all the features were intuitive, especially the method in which a user had to unlock a door.
Quick User Testing
In order to understand if my low fidelity prototype is completely functional and intuitive, I ask 5 users to quickly test my prototype to discover any functional shortcomings and gain feedback. Below are some errors I identified:
2/5 Users were confused on how to unlock the door because holding down the button was unintuitive.
🤔 Instructions Unclear
One user mentioned that face scan may be unnecessary because in order to unlock the phone, face scan is already needed. Apps like Venmo, Chase Bank, and Apple Wallet do not require face scan before spending money.
😐 Face Scan Hassle
3/5 users felt that there are too many steps to unlock the door. They believe it would be much easier to just tap without holding down a button.
😬 Too Many Steps
Pressing down on the screen on an Apple phone causes the phone to exit out of the app. This may cause users to exit out of the app when they are in the middle of unlocking a door.
⚠️ Conflicting Actions
2/5 users found the “Hold to Unlock” button to be too small.
🤏 Button Too Small
Revising Prototype
Based on errors found in the Quick User Testings, I mainly revised the unlocking mechanism to ensure that the process would be much more simple and intuitive.
06. Visual Design
After solidifying the functionality of the technology, I moved onto the aesthetics of the app. I created a style guide to ensure a beautiful and cohesive visual design.
Style Guide
The style guide focused on color, typography, iconography, and imagery. I wanted the visual design to be clean, modern, and minimalistic to match the aesthetic of modern apartments on college campuses. I wanted the style to remind the user of a comfortable and cozy living space.
07. High Fidelity Prototype
I applied the style guidelines to the low fidelity prototype, creating the final high fidelity solution that is both beautiful and functional.
Onboarding
The onboarding process is straight-forward and efficient, while maximizing security. With each step, the user is always informed on what they are supposed to do and why through feedback. Any input errors are always easily fixable, ensuring flexibility and user control.
Homepage
Keys are conveniently stored on the homepage in a nicely organized card layout. This allows the user to efficiently navigate to their desired key speedily. Key order, size, icon, color, and image can all be customized by the user to their liking. This not only provides the user with delight through personalization, but also allows for the ability to create immediate recall through visual differentiation and positioning.
Key Page
The app keeps the user informed by providing details on 1) who has access to the living space, 2) what the status of the lock is (locked or unlocked), and 3) any recent and previous activity such as a roommate entering the apartment. This allows the user to feel secure and up to date. Users can also request maintenance, message the office, lend a key, and return the key on this page.
Unlocking Mechanism
To unlock the door of an apartment, the user presses a button at the bottom of the screen and physically taps the lock with their phone. Users are instructed these steps in real time to minimize confusion and prevent error. This method is similar to the steps of Apple pay and keyfobs, which nearly all college students are familiar with. This these steps are easy to learn, remember, and enact.
Lend a Copy
Users can invite friends and family to temporarily access their locks. This is a useful feature for students that often have visitors. For example, they may have a friend staying over or parents that need to come in and out to move stuff in. The process for lending a digital key copy is simple. The user can control the amount of key uses and a specific date and time range that the key can be used to keep the living space safe. The app gives the user many opportunities to edit and verify any selections. If the user wants to lend a copy to a friend and the app does not recognize, the app will allow them to verify their friend’s phone number to ensure security.
Notifications
Notifications are easy to find on the homepage and lights up with a red dot to notify the user when it needs to be checked. The most urgent and newest notification will be displayed at the top. Past notifications are displayed underneath and allows the user to keep track of previous events related to their living space.
Requesting Maintenance
Requesting for maintenance has never been easier. The use can set their contact preference, describe the issue, add an image, and provide their consent for property staff to enter. This feature can be used for any maintenance issue, including if there is anything wrong with the lock.
08. Conclusion
And thats the end! I had a lot of fun with this personal project and hope to expand on it further in the future. I am interested in researching more about design for digital safety and authentication to better understand what safeguards need to be implemented to ensure complete security. Additionally, I would love to think more about the administrative side and how they manage the different kinds of keys and users.
Rose
I am really proud of the high fidelity prototype! I really like how modern and clean the UI looks and I find that the animations add a lot to the experience. I believe the user experience of this product is very thought out and backed up by the results from the user interviews. I am also very pleased to have applied my knowledge from my SI: 422 User Research and Evaluation course on this personal project. In that class we learned how to conduct effective and unbiased user interviews in order to meet an exploratory objective.
Thorn
I definitely think I should conduct in depth user testing on the high fidelity prototypes to determine any shortcomings. I would love to conduct the test in-person and in-context, where the user needs to physically tap a lock when doing the tasks. This is to see if the mechanism is as intuitive and simple as the theory. These user testings would verify the design successes and reveal any design failures for further iterations. Furthermore, I think it would be extremely insightful to conduct competitive analysis to see the strengths and weaknesses of existing mobile keyshare apps that are commonly used for hotels.
Bud
I would love to create more screens in the future for different types of users, such as the apartment staff in the front office. There is the opportunity for me to develop a desktop version of the mobile key app where apartment staff can administer mobile keys and customize any restrictions like whether or not their renters can even lend a copy.