Recent Work

This project was a multi-phase UX research initiative to evaluate and reimagine Control4’s digital ecosystem across the customer app, a proposed simplified product tier, and dealer enablement tools. Control4 brought in the research team to understand why customers experience inconsistent installs, low usability, and feature underutilization that push them toward DIY alternatives. Dealers also face steep learning curves and misaligned incentives that contribute to unreliable system configurations and poor customer outcomes. The goal of the project was to uncover these pain points, validate new product concepts, and guide strategic decisions toward a simpler, more reliable, and more scalable Control4 experience.

• Customers found the current Control4 app powerful but overly complex, struggling with navigation, mental models, and routine creation—driving the product team to pursue a simplified IA, clearer iconography, and customizable home screens to reduce cognitive load.

• Dealers consistently shared in research interviews that installation quality varies due to steep learning curves and high configuration complexity, prompting investment in a templated, misconfiguration-resistant Composer replacement and a curated “walled garden” hardware ecosystem.

• Customers responded very positively to AI for guidance and automation, especially when it reduced multi-step tasks, influencing the incorporation of AI-assisted routine creation, smart suggestions, and contextual help inside the new app experience.
  
  UX RESEARCH IMPACT

• Dealer interviews indicated that simplified tooling could reduce programming time by 30–50% for a typical install. Customers showed 60%+ willingness to accept a curated ecosystem in exchange for reliability.

• Across studies, 70–80% of participants said they would feel comfortable handling basic customizations themselves using the new app; a major improvement from historical behavior, where customers relied heavily on dealers. This supported the addition of AI-assisted routines and more intuitive Moods.

• Prototype testing of the redesigned UI reduced average time-on-task by 28% for lighting actions and 41% for accessing Rooms or Media. This validated the shift toward fewer steps, clearer labeling, and persistent shortcuts.

• Participants rated the AI-assisted routine builder as delivering 2× higher perceived value compared with manual routine creation.