Scheduling, rebuilt
from simple blocks
Our usability study found 0% task completion among experienced users editing a smart-home schedule - the app's logic broke the mental models they trusted. This project builds on top of familiar calendar mechanics, composing the rest from small, reusable blocks.
CONTEXT
GROUP PHASE
Usability study
commissioned
by De'Longhi for
TU Delft course
INDIVIDUAL PHASE
Self-initiated
design project
TIMELINE
INDIVIDUAL PHASE
July 2026
3 weeks
GROUP PHASE
April - June 2026
8 weeks
MY ROLE
GROUP CONTRIBUTION
Study design
Conducting user sessions
Mixed data analysis
INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTION
Interaction design
Visual design
Prototype engineering
TEAMMATES
Zhou Ziyi
Arda Yener
Daan Robben
Emma van Heek
OVERVIEW
Usability research for a client,
designing a universal pattern
Although most of us know De'Longhi for their espresso machines, they actually carry an extensive line of climate control products with ambition to compete in the growing smart-home space.
As such, they tasked our group with conducting a usability study of the scheduling features of DeLonghi Comfort - the companion app for their curiously named Pinguino portable AC unit.
I took the findings further on my own: developing a smart-home scheduling pattern meant to hold up beyond any single device.
3 EXPERIENCED
WITH SMART HOME
4 INEXPERIENCED
WITH SMART HOME
RESEARCH
Do experienced users
outperform the first-timers?
We ran task-based usability testing with 7 TU Delft students - split between smart-home-experienced and first-time users - on the De'Longhi Comfort app paired with the Pinguino AC.
Each session consisted of think-aloud task completion across six scheduling tasks, post-task confidence and difficulty ratings, and a UEQ questionnaire, giving us both behavioral and self-reported usability data.
FINDINGS
INEXPERIENCED
EXPERIENCED
AVG % OF TASKS
COMPLETED
SUCCESSFULLY
99%
78%
AVG % OF TASKS
RATED HARDER
THAN EXPECTED
38%
56%
Surprisingly, experienced
users struggle noticeably more
Our research uncovered something rather counterintuitive - experienced smart-home users performed worse across the board than first-time users. It's most evident on the schedule-editing task, where 0% of experienced participants succeeded against 100% of novices. The gap also shows up in overall task completion rate and self-reported difficulty.
FINDINGS
PRAGMATIC
QUALITY
0.65
HEDONIC
QUALITY
-0.45
In theory usable, but
not exactly thrilling
On the UEQ, pragmatic usability scored an average of 0.65 across all users - just under the 0.8 industry benchmark. This figure suggests that the core scheduling functionalities largely work, even if less than ideal. What stands out more is the -0.45 score on the hedonic quality with novelty rated as the weakest single dimension, signaling users found the app rather uninventive and unengaging.
The "Tap to switch on" button sits on top of the schedule obscuring it and does not even turn it on. Scheduled blocks don't give user any indication on what parameters are they set to, as well as inconveniently expand beyond the viewport, not allowing for a glanceable overview.
Start time and end time do not auto-populate while adjusting one of them. Most importantly, user can't visualize how this block will fit into their existing schedule while creating. The app also uses a confusing concept of "favourite mode" presets which do not work consistently across blocks.
Once a block is scheduled user cannot disable it or save as a reusable pattern and "Delete" destroys it altogether. It's also not editable at first, user has to first enter the "Edit" mode. Crucially, editing a field here can also spawn a duplicate block instead of updating the original.
CONCLUSIONS
Mental models
failing users
The app's scheduling logic diverges from patterns users already carry from other apps - leading to confusion and, in several sessions, abandoning
the task altogether.
FINDINGS
Silent system
feedback
Important actions like edits, setting changes and schedule overrides happen with zero confirmation, leaving users unsure whether the system registered their input at all.
FINDINGS
Questionable
interaction quality
Both visually and behaviorally the interface reads as dated and purely utilitarian next to comparable smart-home apps, with little to engage or delight the user.
SOLUTION
Reimagining the
scheduling flow
The redesign restructures scheduling around three layers — presets, day patterns, and the calendar — mirroring how users already think about time rather than how the original app happened to store it. A preset captures a single setting bundle (mode, temperature, humidity); day patterns compose presets into a reusable sequence for one day; the calendar paints those day patterns onto specific dates, with repeats or one-off exceptions, rather than treating a week as its own saved object.
This flowchart maps that hierarchy end to end, including how the system handles a scheduling conflict: rather than resolving silently, every collision routes through an explicit user choice, with the result confirmed visibly rather than assumed.
Reimagining the
scheduling flow
The redesign restructures scheduling around three layers — presets, day patterns, and the calendar — mirroring how users already think about time rather than how the original app happened to store it. A preset captures a single setting bundle (mode, temperature, humidity); day patterns compose presets into a reusable sequence for one day; the calendar paints those day patterns onto specific dates, with repeats or one-off exceptions, rather than treating a week as its own saved object.
This flowchart maps that hierarchy end to end, including how the system handles a scheduling conflict: rather than resolving silently, every collision routes through an explicit user choice, with the result confirmed visibly rather than assumed.
Reimagining the
scheduling flow
The redesign restructures scheduling around three layers — presets, day patterns, and the calendar — mirroring how users already think about time rather than how the original app happened to store it. A preset captures a single setting bundle (mode, temperature, humidity); day patterns compose presets into a reusable sequence for one day; the calendar paints those day patterns onto specific dates, with repeats or one-off exceptions, rather than treating a week as its own saved object.
This flowchart maps that hierarchy end to end, including how the system handles a scheduling conflict: rather than resolving silently, every collision routes through an explicit user choice, with the result confirmed visibly rather than assumed.
Reimagining the
scheduling flow
The redesign restructures scheduling around three layers — presets, day patterns, and the calendar — mirroring how users already think about time rather than how the original app happened to store it. A preset captures a single setting bundle (mode, temperature, humidity); day patterns compose presets into a reusable sequence for one day; the calendar paints those day patterns onto specific dates, with repeats or one-off exceptions, rather than treating a week as its own saved object.
This flowchart maps that hierarchy end to end, including how the system handles a scheduling conflict: rather than resolving silently, every collision routes through an explicit user choice, with the result confirmed visibly rather than assumed.
Reimagining the
scheduling flow
The redesign restructures scheduling around three layers — presets, day patterns, and the calendar — mirroring how users already think about time rather than how the original app happened to store it. A preset captures a single setting bundle (mode, temperature, humidity); day patterns compose presets into a reusable sequence for one day; the calendar paints those day patterns onto specific dates, with repeats or one-off exceptions, rather than treating a week as its own saved object.
This flowchart maps that hierarchy end to end, including how the system handles a scheduling conflict: rather than resolving silently, every collision routes through an explicit user choice, with the result confirmed visibly rather than assumed.
Reimagining the
scheduling flow
The redesign restructures scheduling around three layers — presets, day patterns, and the calendar — mirroring how users already think about time rather than how the original app happened to store it. A preset captures a single setting bundle (mode, temperature, humidity); day patterns compose presets into a reusable sequence for one day; the calendar paints those day patterns onto specific dates, with repeats or one-off exceptions, rather than treating a week as its own saved object.
This flowchart maps that hierarchy end to end, including how the system handles a scheduling conflict: rather than resolving silently, every collision routes through an explicit user choice, with the result confirmed visibly rather than assumed.
Reimagining the
scheduling flow
The redesign restructures scheduling around three layers — presets, day patterns, and the calendar — mirroring how users already think about time rather than how the original app happened to store it. A preset captures a single setting bundle (mode, temperature, humidity); day patterns compose presets into a reusable sequence for one day; the calendar paints those day patterns onto specific dates, with repeats or one-off exceptions, rather than treating a week as its own saved object.
This flowchart maps that hierarchy end to end, including how the system handles a scheduling conflict: rather than resolving silently, every collision routes through an explicit user choice, with the result confirmed visibly rather than assumed.
Reimagining the
scheduling flow
The redesign restructures scheduling around three layers — presets, day patterns, and the calendar — mirroring how users already think about time rather than how the original app happened to store it. A preset captures a single setting bundle (mode, temperature, humidity); day patterns compose presets into a reusable sequence for one day; the calendar paints those day patterns onto specific dates, with repeats or one-off exceptions, rather than treating a week as its own saved object.
This flowchart maps that hierarchy end to end, including how the system handles a scheduling conflict: rather than resolving silently, every collision routes through an explicit user choice, with the result confirmed visibly rather than assumed.
REFLECTION
Group research for a client,
individual design exploration
De'Longhi asked our team to audit the scheduling features of DeLonghi Comfort, the companion app for their Pinguino portable air conditioner — a brand better known for espresso machines than climate control.
I took the research further on my own, redesigning the scheduling interaction with an eye toward a pattern that could generalize beyond this one device.