Preventing kitchen fires, saving more than 150,000 lives
Project Snapshot
9 months
Capstone project
5 electrical engineers, 4 mechanical engineers, 1 app developer, 2 FLIR advisors
Nearly a third of Americans uninstall their smoke detectors due to false alarms or dead batteries, leaving homes at greater risk of fire. To address this, we developed a fire-prevention product that uses machine learning and thermal imaging to detect kitchen hazards and deliver timely alerts for home cooks. I led the iOS app design for this capstone project as the only designer, sponsored by Teledyne FLIR, working with stakeholders and a team of 10 engineers to create a reliable, user-friendly solution.
As the only designer on the team, I...
💪 Secured buy-in for app design and development from team members and FLIR stakeholders
📱 Designed the iOS mobile app from 0-1 in a 9 month dynamic timeline
🔎 Identified and synthesized key user pain points through remote and field testing
🤝 Collaborated with 10 engineers in a cross functional team to strategize roadmap
Achievements
Fostered UX culture
Historically, engineering capstone projects focus more on applied technology. Overtime, my involvement in the app helped promote an outcome-driven design approach within the team, prioritizing user needs and potential business objectives over feature dumping to create real value from our work.
Won best project award
The digital solution accompanying the device helped show real value in a realistic market as something that would be use in a home kitchen. This helped us win the Best Multidisciplinary Engineering Award in the capstone cohort.
Potential Impact
Potential to save 150,000+ lives
At the estimation of 25% product adoption rate among the at-risk folks (around 100 million), taking into account fire death rates, there is a potential of saving 164,340 lives across the US with proper installation of the device and proper use of the app.
Helped users save time and reduce anxiety
Real-time monitoring features and alerts give potential value to users to help save time and reduce daily anxiety around fire-related kitchen safety. Less time worrying and going home to check on the stove.
Timeline
Iterating quickly to align design with evolving constraints
Developing the product’s technology alongside the app made design feasibility a moving target during the first four months of R&D. Frequent pivots and rapid experimentation required a fast iteration approach, where I shared concepts during quarterly reviews and collaborated closely with the team to ensure the app met user needs and technical requirements. With just one UX/UI designer and one app developer, we set realistic goals and delivered a functional device-app system by year’s end.
My design process in the project timeline
Ensuring an intuitive onboarding process using progressive disclosure
Device Set Up & Connection
Users first connect the app to their home or local network, then connect to the device before mounting.
Device Mounting & Finalize Setup
The mounting process involves users physically setting up the device in their kitchen, handling both the devices and the phone with the app. Clarity and simplicity is crucial here.
Making complex thermal data intuitive for users to monitor their stoves
Home dashboard - default
Once the users complete their personalization and onboarding process, they are led to the dashboard, which houses basic monitoring features and timers.
Home dashboard - alert state
The background changes when the system goes into alert state to warn the users of potential kitchen dangers.
Push notifications
Users get push notifications in or out of the home so they can stay alert no matter where they are.
My team and I after our presentation at the FLIR campus in Santa Barbara :)
Continue reading for more details…
Click below to continue reading about how I designed the final prototype.
