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Smarthome+ app

The Smarthome+ app is the central interface through which users control, automate, and understand their connected home. It brings together devices that were never designed to work together and makes them feel like part of the same system.

By the time I joined the project the app was already very mature with thousands of users across Canada and I was set to collaborate through new features where users can monitor security cameras, receive real-time alerts, control devices remotely, create automations, and understand their home’s energy usage. I was set to design the app to feel calm, predictable, and approachable rather than technical or overwhelming.

Link to the brand and Telus

The scale of the problem

As smarthome+ grew, the biggest risk wasn’t lack of features — it was the gradual erosion of consistency caused by scale.
Image: several screens of smart home, from every part of the app.

Every new device category brings its own behaviours, edge cases, and states. Multiply that by different brands, connectivity standards, and platforms, and small inconsistencies start to compound very quickly. At a certain point, designing features in isolation stops being viable, and the product needs stronger foundations to avoid becoming fragmented and hard to evolve.
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We had to rethink this to create a agnostic solution.

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SDUI content, THE CHALLENGE about how we set to create a system that would be agnostic and power up every possible device. The three images can be about SDUI, perhaps one with the evolution of the past tiles and the new ones, agnostic.
The root cause of inconsistency.

The solution: Chameleon design system

The Chameleon Design System was created to support the scale and variability of Smart Home without letting that complexity leak into the user experience.

The existing TELUS-wide design system wasn’t designed for highly dynamic, device-driven interfaces. Chameleon evolved from that foundation into a more flexible, token-driven system tailored specifically to Smart Home. A big part of my work here was defining clear rules and thresholds — not just what components exist, but when and how they should be used — in close collaboration with core engineering. Flexibility was essential, but unbounded flexibility would have quickly undermined consistency.

The Chameleon Design System isn’t just documented — it’s something designers can interact with and test in a real environment. We built a dedicated Chameleon app for iOS and Android that allows authorised designers to explore components, tweak settings, and experience real behaviour before anything reaches production. It’s particularly useful for validating edge cases, understanding state changes, and onboarding new designers into the system without dropping them straight into a dense Figma library.

Dark mode included.

Smart Home was designed from the start to support white-label deployments, without redesigning the product every time the brand changes

This meant treating brand as a configurable layer rather than something baked into components. Colours, typography, iconography, and assets are all driven by tokens, allowing the same core experience to adapt to different partners, markets, or energy providers. It’s the kind of work users never notice — but the moment the business needs it, it becomes essential.

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DEVICE CONTROLS Creating a universal interface for devices that behave nothing alike (MAKE THIS FEATURE SPECIFIC)

SDUI — the Server-Driven User Interface — defines how vastly different devices can still feel like they belong to the same app. Instead of designing bespoke interfaces for every device category, SDUI provides a set of agnostic interaction patterns and reusable components that adapt to a wide range of devices — from simple lights to thermostats, security cameras, smoke detectors, flood sensors, and smart locks. The goal isn’t visual sameness, but immediate familiarity: users should instinctively understand how to interact with a device, even if they’ve never seen that specific one before.

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ROUTINES AND AUTOMATION Designing automation that feels powerful without feeling intimidating (two phones close at an angle)

Routines in Smart Home allow users to automate their home in ways that go beyond what many other ecosystems can support, without requiring technical knowledge to get started.
Small textBecause the platform connects devices across different brands and connectivity technologies, routines can combine actions that aren’t always possible elsewhere. The real challenge wasn’t adding power — it was shaping that power so it feels progressive and forgiving. A lot of design effort went into sensible defaults, clear language, and gradual disclosure, so users can start simple and build confidence over time.

Link to the brand and Telus

DEVICE FILTERING (stuff from Andy)

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Link to the brand and Telus

AI ASSISTANT
Using AI to reduce friction, not to steal the spotlight (use pillow image)

The AI assistant in Smart Home was designed as a natural extension of the system, helping users interact with their home in a more intuitive way without replacing existing interfaces.
Small textUsers can create routines, control devices, and understand what’s happening in their home using natural language. From a design perspective, the hardest part wasn’t making the conversation work — it was deciding when not to rely on AI, and how to make sure users always feel in control and understand what’s going to happen before anything changes.

Link to the brand and Telus

METRICS ON FIGMA AND UX research data
Letting real usage — not assumptions — shape what gets built next

A design system only succeeds if feature teams can use it confidently, without feeling constrained or slowed down.
I work closely with feature teams from early discovery through to delivery, helping define creative direction while also setting clear boundaries. Part of the work is educational — making sure designers understand not just what components exist, but why certain patterns are encouraged or discouraged. By the time features are ready to ship, designs are often already using system components that developers recognise and trust, which significantly reduces rework and delivery time.
UX research, feature usage data, and design system adoption metrics play a central role in planning and prioritisation. We look not only at how users interact with features, but also at how designers adopt components and patterns in Figma. This makes it possible to anticipate what feature teams will need ahead of time and prepare system components before they become blockers — which has had a tangible impact on delivery speed and alignment between design and development.

Link to the brand and Telus

Outcome

What ultimately ships in Smart Home looks calm and straightforward, even though the system supporting it is anything but.
A strong design foundation, consistent cross-platform patterns, and a system-first approach have allowed the product to keep scaling without slowing teams down or accumulating design debt. New devices, features, and partners can be introduced without rethinking the experience from scratch — which is exactly the point.

Telus SmartHome+

An experience for things that were, in theory, made to work together

Smarthome+ app

The scale of the problem

The solution: Chameleon design system

DEVICE CONTROLS Creating a universal interface for devices that behave nothing alike (MAKE THIS FEATURE SPECIFIC)

ROUTINES AND AUTOMATION Designing automation that feels powerful without feeling intimidating (two phones close at an angle)

DEVICE FILTERING (stuff from Andy)

AI ASSISTANT
Using AI to reduce friction, not to steal the spotlight (use pillow image)

METRICS ON FIGMA AND UX research data
Letting real usage — not assumptions — shape what gets built next

Outcome

Telus SmartHome+

An experience for things that were, in theory, made to work together

Smarthome+ app

The scale of the problem

The solution: Chameleon design system

DEVICE CONTROLS Creating a universal interface for devices that behave nothing alike (MAKE THIS FEATURE SPECIFIC)

ROUTINES AND AUTOMATION Designing automation that feels powerful without feeling intimidating (two phones close at an angle)

DEVICE FILTERING (stuff from Andy)

AI ASSISTANTUsing AI to reduce friction, not to steal the spotlight (use pillow image)

METRICS ON FIGMA AND UX research dataLetting real usage — not assumptions — shape what gets built next

Outcome

AI ASSISTANT
Using AI to reduce friction, not to steal the spotlight (use pillow image)

METRICS ON FIGMA AND UX research data
Letting real usage — not assumptions — shape what gets built next