One week. Real interviews. Real data. Then we built it.
SmartSync: A Smart Home Dashboard, Designed and Built
A take-home UX brief from Cisco. Completed with 4 real user interviews across age groups, YouGov market data, and a research-backed hi-fi design system. Then used as an AI experimentation muse, built into a functional prototype with Cursor.
Role
UX Research and Design AI-Assisted Build
Type
Take-Home Brief AI Experimentation Project
Timeline
Week 1: Research to Hi-Fi Ongoing: Built with Cursor
If you're skimmingThree things that defined this project
The brief
Design a unified smart home portal consolidating devices, energy, security, pet care, and food inventory for a household.
Key decisions
4 real interviews across age groups, not assumed personas
Focus Zone toggle built from the notification-overload insight
Real device metrics in the build, not placeholder data
What came out
Full research synthesis to hi-fi across all modules
Cursor-built functional prototype with live device data
A log of where AI code diverges from design intent
4
Real user interviews
4
Research insights
20+
Features mapped
1
AI-built prototype
The original briefCisco take-home — Home Management Portal
Imagine if you had a tool to help manage your home. This imaginary system has access to all possible data from your home: which lights are on, how many ounces of soap are left in your shampoo bottle, your cat's top 5 favourite nap spots.
01The onboarding process for a new home — moving house, necessary purchases, furnishings, services.
02A home comfort dashboard — troubleshoot recurring issues, inventory regular supplies, tips on decor or eco-friendliness.chosen
01 — Context
Managing a home today means managing five different apps
Lights in one app, thermostat in another, security camera in a third. The experience is fragmented by design, because the market is fragmented. The brief: collapse this into one intelligent portal, built around how people actually live at home.
Before
4 to 7 separate apps, no shared context
Maintenance alerts buried in notifications
No single view of energy consumption
Food tracked on whiteboards or memory
Pet schedules in personal phone reminders
→
SmartSync
One portal across all devices and categories
Alerts tiered by urgency, not delivered flat
Real-time energy with optimisation suggestions
Food inventory with expiry dates and prompts
Pet management with feeds, walks, vet reminders
02 — User Research
Four real interviews. Four completely different homes.
🎙
Primary research
1:1 video interviews conducted across four age groups and household types. Open-ended agenda, unfiltered conversations about home management frustrations and smart home aspirations. View interview recordings ↗
Four personas spanning 20 to 50+ years — each with a different relationship to home management, technology, and what a smart home should actually do for them.
User questions
What are the most common pains when managing your home today?
How do you track maintenance activities?
What does a smart home mean to you?
Top 3 things you'd be most excited about in a smart home?
What would you prioritise: Comfort, Safety, or Maintenance?
Would you let a device run your home entirely?
Expert questions
How will smart technology evolve in home design over the next decade?
What emerging technologies will have the biggest impact?
What are the biggest challenges designing for smart automation?
How does automation change according to geographies?
How can sustainability shape smart home design?
03 — Research Synthesis
Four themes that shaped every design decision
Insight 01
Automation and Convenience
Users want lights, AC, and small chores automated without feeling managed by their own home. The system must feel effortless, with easy fallback to manual control.
Drove: Quick Actions module and device auto-discovery flow
Insight 02
Food Supply Management
Tracking food is deeply analogue: whiteboards, WhatsApp, memory. Smart homes can replace this with expiry labels and stock indicators that prompt action before waste happens.
Drove: Food Inventory module with expiry alerts
Insight 03
Customisation and Control
Automation should never feel irreversible. Users want to choose what gets automated, adjust by mood or situation, and override instantly. Control is the prerequisite for trust.
Drove: Focus Zone toggle and manual override patterns
Insight 04
Integration and User Experience
The notification problem is not about volume, it is about hierarchy. Smart homes must adapt to user routines and surface what matters without overwhelming what is comfortable.
Drove: notification tiering system and Recent Activity feed
04 — Market Signal
The data confirmed the instinct: safety comes first
#1
Safety and security tops adoption drivers across all age groups. Security Management is a first-class module, not an afterthought.
The Focus Zone toggle came directly from research, not as a nice-to-have, but as the answer to a specific frustration: "I know I'm getting alerts. I just need to know which ones actually matter right now."
Design decision rationale
07 — What came next
The designs didn't stay in Figma
01
The question
Brief complete. Hi-fi polished. Could I build this myself — without a developer?
02
The pipeline
Figma MCP connected the design file live into Cursor. Every hi-fi screen uploaded to Claude to generate structured build prompts.
03
The output
7 iterations. 8-page React prototype, dual personas, dark/light mode, WCAG AA. Every AI decision reviewed and owned.
🧪 AI Experiment
Personal experiment — not a shipped product
Once the research was done and the hi-fi screens were complete, I had a question: could I build them myself — without a developer? I connected Figma directly into Cursor via Figma MCP, uploaded every screen to Claude to generate structured build prompts, and iterated through 7 prompts to produce a working React prototype. The full process — and the live clickable build — is documented in Part 02.
