ADT Resident App

With new functionality off the table, we aimed to make the resident experience stand out in the sea of sameness across the smart home landscape.

With only a few devices in each apartment, we focused on making a personal and joyful experience that residents would love to use.

We leaned into the wider sense of home. What home means to people. Home is deeply personal. The resident experience should reflect that perspective.

We wanted to break smart home experiences out of the sterile design landscape and explore how personalization could drive the experience itself.

At the start of the project, we faced a major limitation: no new functionality or devices could be added.

The purpose of the project was to redesign the resident experience exclusively through an experiential software lens.

Because this was a bold departure from ADT’s outdated and dry brand guidelines, I presented the direction to multiple C-level ADT executives, earning enthusiastic support and buy-in.

The project was on track for full design and development until it was placed on hold due to engineering resource constraints and system reliability prioritization.

A key goal was to understand if the company, at the executive level, was open to repositioning both its software product and overall brand strategy.

When IOTAS was acquired, ADT’s brand guidelines were still rooted in 1990s print marketing, catering to older homeowners rather than the younger apartment renters the brand now needed to reach.

This project was a chance to gauge appetite to reposition the ADT brand directly through the software experience. Introducing the 150-year-old brand to new user demographics and sales channels.