Aura™ Illuminated Shades

Aura™ offers an revolutionary 3-in-1 solution that combines a motorized smart shade with LED lighting to give consumers “daylight on demand.”

My Role
UX Manager, UX/UI Designer

Year
2022-2023

Company / Client
Hunter Douglas

Background

Hunter Douglas is a leader in the window coverings industry, offering consumers a wide range of products and high quality fabrics. Shades can be operated manually, or motorized with PowerView® Automation.

Since the introduction of PowerView® Automation and the PowerView® App, they have evolved to become a major player in the smart home integration space.

Learn more here!

Key Objective

Deliver an experience that allowed users to set up and operate an Aura™ shade in the PowerView App, ensuring all key features and functions of the product were captured:

  • Primary shade operation

  • LED operation

  • Usage in Scenes and Schedules

The solution had to live within the context of the existing PowerView App, and maintain consistency with all other shading products and feature sets offered.

Use cases

  • Circadian harmony

    All humans have an internal body clock, or circadian rhythm. Aura™ shades should align with this natural rhythm (like simulating a natural sunrise or sunset) to enhance their daily routine.

  • Ultimate ambience

    The presence of natural and/or artificial light can greatly affect the atmosphere of a space, and how we feel in that space. A user should be able to use Aura™ to curate their perfect setting to boost productivity, set the mood for entertaining, or anything in between.

  • Seamless integration

    Users purchasing Aura™ are likely already living with at least a few smart home solutions, like PowerView® shades or smart lighting. While innovative in nature, living with this product should feel familiar to other devices and products they already use in their home.

Research & initial concepts

Researched industry trends, other smart lighting apps, and considered existing PowerView products with similar functionality. Also considered common home lighting temperature benchmarks, temperatures, and their usage.

Explored many concepts to combine shade control (primary and secondary shade) and LED controls (brightness and temperature). Above image compiles multiple iterations following peer review and testing. External user testing was not possible due to time constraints, resources, and confidentiality.

Feedback driving final design took under consideration product compatibility, discoverability, accessibility and usability, and development feasibility.

Final design solution

Aura™ shades have unique UI to immediately tell user shade’s current position, and whether LED is on or off.

Custom preset Scenes offered to user for common lighting settings.

Shade and back panel (secondary shade) can be operated separately, as other PowerView shades. Aura™ shade control has unique ‘light’ operation for LED control. Two sliders independently adjust brightness and temperature, and there is also a global ON/OFF switch.

Temperature value moves with slider as user operates LED for easier readability. Temperature color selected permeates through other UI elements, even when light control is minimized, for high-level confirmation of current LED setting.

Notable awards

Best Invention

TIME Magazine, 2023

Innovation by Design

Fast Company, 2023

Best Product Award

CEPro, 2023