Intel.
Research & Design for IoT, IoR, AVs

This work was conducted at the peak of Intel’s exploration into the Internet of Things and Autonomous vehicles. While the market has evolved, the core questions around ecosystem coordination, data ethics, and trust in automation are still relevant today.
At that time, I collaborated with different start ups and the community of makers to connect tech with users’ needs, through discovery, market research, and modest budgets.

This project explores how drones can be used to monitor large scale building sites.

From research to design: qualitative and quantitative user research, market analysis, hands-on drone building, field studies, user experience design, service design.

My role

Ways to market for UAVs

Hypothesis

Large areas such as building sites or military zones were difficult to access, monitor and manage for professionals. Drones help to monitor those areas and in some cases replace human labour where access is limited.

Market and technical review

We wanted to validate our hypothesis and we started different streams of research to understand a little bit more about the technology, and how a drone works. The entire research process was planned by engineers and designers working together on a daily basis on the same problem.

We compared 20 different drones available on the Market. We chose a range of drones based on the unique characteristics they offer. That includes drones with FPV (first person view), GPS, voice control, bird wings instead of propellers and those with or without gyroscope.

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Designing and Building a Drone

We built a drone from scratch, instead of using DIY drone kits, to understand the weight to lift ratio. We also tested various customisation methods using Arduino and 3D Printing. The main goal was not to make the drone fly, but understand what enables it to do so.

 

Surveys and interviews

15 Online Surveys on DIY Drones community and 6 individual semi structured interviews with entrepreneurs focused on drone technology. We wanted to know more about the use of the ground control.

Initial findings

  • End to End experience for professional drones is inconsistent, dependable on regulations that are different in each country.

  • Drones have technical limitations, such as battery life, which make them difficult to use to monitor large building sites planning long missions.

  • Flight Data Overflow makes it hard for the operator to prioritise data consumption and act fast in difficult situations.

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The Manchester Stadium Roof

We partnered with FK Group, a worldwide full building envelope contractor, to identify new opportunities for using drones in large building sites. The company was responsible for building the new extension for the Manchester Stadium roof, so our project team spent some time with FK Group in Manchester to understand the context thoroughly. We interviewed the site manager, HR manager and a few contractors, we also spent some time observing how people were working on top of the stadium’s roof.

Overall our in field research confirmed the initial desk and technical research:

  • When it comes to large projects like this one, managing the process from design to execution is not cost effective and the delta between the design and the final result is usually very high.

  • Human error chances are also very high, because some areas are difficult to reach in extreme working conditions.

  • It is more and more difficult to find professionals who have the skills to perform specific tasks in difficult weather conditions.

Towards design recommendations: personas, scenarios, flows

Our initial project hypothesis was confirmed by the collaboration with FK Group. We identified three main proto personas for this project, we started to generate ideas on how to design a platform that could simplify the workflow and the interaction between site manager, engineers and drone operator.

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Designing the Platform

Designers and engineers spent a week together in idea generating workshops, the new ideas were contextualised with our technical and infield research.

The overall process brought to life a basic set of features for the initial multi-device platform, which had the aim to connect the different workflows of the site manager, engineers with the drone operator, to monitor a large building site and identify critical areas that needed maintenance. From wireframes to more detailed designs we ended up with a working prototype, which was socialised with the rest of the business, together with our recommendations and guidelines. We created a microsite that we open sourced.

Outcome

We validated the project’s hypothesis, demonstrating the potential for drone technology to be used in large-scale site monitoring, improving safety and efficiency.

We managed to deliver a good body of research within budget limitations, this included a final proof of concept that was handed over to Intel’s internal design teams.

We delivered a set of documents and code to the open source community, showcasing the value of integrating design and engineering throughout product development.