Samsung’s Galaxy Smartphones S Secure enhances user’s apps and data privacy besides providing privacy on public Wi-Fi networks.
How can we equip mobile users with an advanced level of data & app privacy ?
Problem
The is an unspoken understanding, within a typical Indian household, that the mobile phone belongs to the family. Instead of being treated as a personal device, a mobile phone is often seen to be shared within family members either willingly or unwillingly (out of fear of being labelled as impolite). It is obvious for the mobile owner to feel concerned about the certain content that is not supposed to be viewed by the borrower.
Even out of the house, a mobile user’s privacy gets robbed when they are offered free wi-fi at coffee shops, airports, train stations, shops etc. Using such unsecured public wi-fi networks put users at risk; as anyone can easily intercept all of their traffic and read virtually everything they send from their mobile device(s). It is seen that either users are not educated/concerned about data privacy or still consciously use the free wi-fi even when they know it not safe.
SOLUTION
Samsung’s S Secure allows unique features that help the mobile owner share the phone with others without any concern. From the list of apps on the mobile, the user can select the apps that can be locked or can even stay hidden from the borrower. Secure wi-fi feature ensures the safest browsing experience and provides privacy features to keep personal information protected.
TV/WEb Commercial
ROLE
Research, Insights, ideation, UI & UX Design, prototyping, external Design & Research agency hiring & management, Business Coordination
Organization & TEAMS
Samsung Electronics India | Product Innovation, Corporate Marketing, R&D, Design
DURATION
4 Months
PRODUCT
Samsung J5 Prime (entry level) & A5/A7 (mid segment) | Year 2017 (Q1)
KEY FEATURES
S Secure app offers two key features : Lock & hide Apps and Secure Wi-Fi. It is designed to provide stress free device and data sharing to the mobile phone user. The details of the two features are as follows:
Feature#1: Lock & Hide Apps
Keep selected apps and its data private by locking or hiding them. Locking and hiding can be done via a pattern, PIN, password, or using fingerprints. Apps will be locked once the screen turns off. Once apps are unlocked, they will remain unlocked until the screen turns off.
Hiding an app will block notifications from it. Only downloaded apps can be hidden.
High Fidelity (on boarding) Screens for ‘Hide/Unhide Apps’ feature
Feature#2 : Secure Wi-Fi
The Galaxy J series smartphones offers Secure Wi-Fi feature, which encrypts data being transferred over public Wi-Fi hotspots. It protects user privacy while browsing by masking domains and apps from the Wi-Fi provider. It blocks tracker requests using the Easy privacy list.
Besides, it encrypts unsecured web requests and keeps user IP address private from most websites and apps. Simply put, it does four things:
Reveal which apps leak your private data
Add an additional layer of shielding to your data
Protect your important documents, photos and video
Avoid embarrassing ads following you around the web
High Fidelity (on-boarding) Screens for ‘Secure Wi-Fi’ feature
Research Process :
Desk Research and Sacrificial Concepts
As the name suggests, sacrificial concepts are created as a stimulus for the interviewees to respond at the end of the in-depth interviews. These concepts are meant to be sacrificed/trashed; however, they give the opportunity to understand which directions/themes are resonating with the consumers and which are completely off. Each sacrificial concept offers a clear value proposition (benefit) to the consumer and is explained with the help of a use case scenario illustration. Based on the hypothesis built after conducting desktop research, I created the following 5 sacrificial concepts cards to be used during the consumer research.
Primary Research
Recruited about 12 respondents across different major cities in India (Hyderabad, Delhi, Chennai) from Old Millennials and young Gen X generations. The intent was to understand the mobile usage for the consumers who have a family and manage a household. Extensive 90 minute in-home interviews helped in discovering the behaviour and pain points around mobile usage in a fluid/boundary less Indian family environment. Overall key takeaway from the field research was the fact that mobile is more of a family device and less personal and hence, there were concerns about the device sharing.
Mobile phones in India are not very personal and belong to the household. Research revealed there is a lot being shared on mobile phone between children, siblings and parents.
Respondent Boards
Synthesis
All our observations from the interviews were later grouped under common themes to identify patterns and see the bigger picture. This became our raw material in finding the key insights.
Insights
Sharing But Controlled: Users want to share their mobile phones with the family members; however, they are always skeptical about the extent of access to their personal content.
Visible Should Be Accessible: Open access of mobile phone to family members is considered as a sign of trust, but what is invisible is never questioned.
Insecure But Free: Users know that their data is not secure while using public wi-fi; yet they do it because it helps them save.
Ideation Workshop
The insights generated from the field research synthesis were used to create the key design principles on which the ideation workshop was conducted.
Design Principles
Create a feature that allows mobile owner to provide limited access to the family members/person device is shared with
Provide ways for mobile owner to conceal what’s not meant to be shared with any other user of the device.
Create a feature that provides data security to the mobile owner when using a public wi-fi
These design principles were shared with the participants (marketing, design, external agencies, R&D and other stakeholders) to generate a pool of concepts to address the problems/unmet user needs. The key concepts that emerged at the end of the exercise (i.e. after unanimous voting) were: 1. Lock Apps 2. Hide Apps 3. Secure Wi-fi
APP USER JOURNEY
Broke down our user’s journey with the app into buckets that allow for the full range of the user experience. It also helped us to organize the information architecture of the app and not miss any key moment of interaction.
WIREFRAMES (App On-boarding)
The rough structure of the app was drawn into wireframes to evaluate the flow and identify missing links. This proved extremely helpful before we could further crystalize it into high fidelity screens.
Mid-fidelity wireframes
Business Impact
Samsung’s S Power Planning helped in the company to establish the J series of entry smart phones in India. This feature was not only launched for Indian but also Indian sub-continent as a pre-installed app.
What did I learn from this project?
The project helped me understand the value of sacrificial concepts during the field research
It challenged me to work together in a varied group and leverage on each other’s strengths.
I also learnt some software tools like Sketch and Marvel
The most important learning came from interacting with end users who were facing this real life issue within their day to day life at home/outdoors. It gave me a big reason to design a solution that impacts their lives in a big way.