LittleBird Mobile App Guest Access Management

LittleBird is a smart home automation and smart access application that allows residents of communities to provide guests with access to their communities and apartment units. The LittleBird mobile app’s interface for sharing access credentials with guests was an overwhelming and confusing single-screen interface.

Challenge

The LittleBird app’s single-screen guest access interface lacks the clarity needed for property residents to understand the implications of their selected options, creating significant property and personal security risks. This redesign project allowed me to update the interface into a simplified step-by-step guest access management wizard. To build the best resident experience, I explored competitor applications and identified successful and unsuccessful guest access credential management approaches.

Objective

My goal for this project was to simplify the guest access user flow to reduce the friction apartment residents face as they granted property guest access to their communities and apartment units. During the research phase, I interviewed apartment residents, property guests, and property managers to identify pain points they experienced while using the LittleBird guest access user interface.

Pain Points

  • The guest access management screen was a single-screen interface consisting of more than 12 different options for users, creating a cognitive overload that resulted in some users ignoring the guest access options altogether.
  • Many options lacked descriptive context, making it challenging for users to understand the meaning behind different access types and access period types - which created property security risks when residents accidentally granted guests greater access than necessary.
  • The property guest list and property guest setup flow shared a single screen, making it challenging for guests to find and manage their list of property guests.

Guest Access Management

The updated property guest list includes more descriptive details about each property guest, including the type of access, the access period, and guest contact information. The updated property list help provide residents with peace of mind as they can quickly identify who has access to their community and apartment unit. Residents can also quickly add guests from thier contacts and edit and delete existing property guests.

Guest Access Setup

I broke down the process of granting guest access into a simple step-by-step setup wizard updated with clear and relevant copywriting that helps users comprehend the implications of their selected options. First residents can input their guest's name and contact information. Their access credentials are sent to the contact information inputted here.

Then residents can select between two different Guest Access Types, Community Access, where guest receive access to the resident's community, and Unit Access, where guests receive access to the resident's community and unit.

Finally, residents can select between three different access period types. Today, provides guest with access until the end of the day at midnight. Daily access allows residents to grant daily reoccurring access on selected days of the week. Custom access allows residents to grant guest one-time or recurring access on specific days of the week during a specific date and time range.

Access Period Selection

If the user selects Today access, there are no additional options for the user. They are navigated directly to the Guest Access confirmation screen. If the user selects Daily access, they have the ability to select recurring 24 hour access on specific days of the week. If the user selects Custom access, they can grant their guest access during a specific time frame, on specific days of the week, during a specific date range.

Editing Guest Access

I faced a challenge in deciding on the best approach to editing guest access. Sending users through the entire guest access flow could be beneficial, allowing them to change guest access settings at each step. However this approach forced users through unnecessary steps if they needed to make minor changes. Ultimately, I designed an interface where users could adjust access control settings as needed without navigating through the entire guest access scheduling flow.