Access Sharing

Company: Amazon
Timeline: Jan 2016 - October 2017 (launch)
Role: UX Lead and senior UX designer working at times with user researcher.
Work performed: Design leadership, interaction design, UI design, competitive analysis, sketches, wireframes, functional specifications, prototypes, user research, final design, visual redlines and production.
Awards: I received a patent for my design thinking on this project. "Web-based Structure Access", US patent no. 10,121,301 issued November 6, 2018.

Access sharing was one of the primary pillars of Amazon Key daily life features. I owned the full experience from concept to launch and through future feature iterations for both iOS and Android apps. The solution provided access for keypad and non-keypad locks. I designed both the owner's experience for sharing access, as well as the guest's receiving access experience.

Goals

Though in-home delivery was our launch focus and product differentiator, we knew customers would expect and love the convenience of keyless access for themselves, their household and their guests. The goal was to provide a solution that matched our tenets of approachable, safe, reliable, direct, effortless, minimal, visionary, and adaptive.

Context

A unique element to Amazon Key's access solution was that we needed to provide guest access for BOTH keypad and keypad locks WITHOUT an app. Numbers told us 20% of our market had features phones with only voice calling and SMS texting. It was a joint effort with the PM, engineering and myself to look into technical options with this limitation. As we explored an SMS solution, we wondered how would we verify the guest was actually at the door? Or was that a necessary security requirement?

Process

As I thought through design options, I explored existing solutions to see what was already in the market and learn if any standards had been set.
We had to decide priorities quickly on large feature sets. Since we had to provide a non-app guest solution anyways, was a guest app required for launch? I designed one, but we ran out of time to build it. And what about roommates and spouses? I mapped out possible household makeups and permissions the owner would want to share with whom, but product management didn't feel household support was critical. They compared Key to Nest which didn't have that feature yet (though they released it before our launch). They ran the numbers and estimated only 8% of our target audience had roommates, and they felt like spouses could share their Amazon account. I strongly disagreed with this perspective but it came down to a question of launch without it or postpone launch. 

Early Designs

Perhaps the most complex ask was to design an access sharing flow that supported creating access for keypad codes, SMS texting, and guest app access simultaneously and optionally for the owner. It was up to the guest to decide whether they wanted to use an app or keypad code / SMS. 

Research

I was anxious to conduct research on our designs because we were implementing some novel solutions that I feared customers wouldn't understand - e.g. SMS-based unlocking without geofencing verification. We'd also made some fairly significant cuts in design to reduce engineering scope that I wanted evidence for. I designed a study to get both the owner and guest's perspective on the access experience by testing them each separately and then coming together in one to discuss their complementing experiences, questions, assumptions, likes and dislikes. I planned the study with our user researcher and prepared the script, screens and prototypes. We both moderated the sessions while the PM observed.

Objectives
  • Test terminology
  • Test flows for understandability and smoothness
  • Understand preferences between text vs app guest access methods
  • Verify that our methods anticipate and answer the owner and guest questions
  • Verify that our methods feel secure and share appropriate permissions and privacy from owner and guest’s perspective
Beyond those changes, guest participants were delighted with the text access interaction. Texting 1 and 2 to unlock and then hearing the lock motor move and the door open was magical to them. 

Final Design

Prior to launch, we cut the guest app as we didn't have sufficient time to implement it. This was positive since the resulting design after engineering reductions didn't test well. Additionally I made some language tweaks and the above SMS exchange optimizations per our research findings.
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Owner Shares Access
Guest Receives Access

Success & Learnings

As suspected, keyless entry for self and household members became a major selling point in Amazon Key so much so that we expanded on it post-launch. In customer reviews, in-app feedback, media coverage, users have raved about the convenience it provided and the simplicity of managing codes and guest profiles. 
"I also love that by providing different key codes to different people, we have a record of who entered the house when."
- Amazon customer review

"Love it. Can unlock from work for a guest or send them a code." - Amazon customer review

Also as predicted, customers expected household support by default and were disappointed to find out it wasn't available. We haven't gotten very many requests for a guest app, so it's continued to be lower on our priority list.