With the goal of making it fun and easy to set up NETGEAR's line of home wi-fi routers, we worked alongside their internal design team to refine the process over a 6 month period.
After introducing a more friendly UX, some dancing robots and helpful transitions, we developed and launched native apps for both iOS and Android.
The NETGEAR UP app is built around the experience of unboxing a new router at home and setting it up automatically by simply opening the app and then choosing a network name and password.
The app detects and configures specific hardware models automatically, with interesting animations during long running steps while the app is configured. Detailed step-by-step help screens are available as well.
Consumers can register in-app for NETGEAR product updates and information, completing the experience and strengthening the customer relationship.
One challenge during the project was testing router firmware while developing on iOS and Android, and working with overseas OEM providers to make sure each router could be configured in app. Ultimately we worked closely with QA to discover, document, and then swat bugs that were encountered.