ADT
Project done while at Craft
ADT is one of the most recognized names in home security. They came to us with a new opportunity: design a connected platform, purpose-built for multifamily residential living, to help bring ADT's security infrastructure into the modern apartment experience.
Multifamily residential tech is a complex design problem because of the variety of user experiences to be accounted for. There's the building owner who needs operational visibility. There's the property manager handling requests and access day-to-day. And there's the resident who just wants things to work simply. Designing for all three simultaneously means holding three different mental models and three, potentially conflicting, definitions of user success at once.
This was a collaborative, all-hands project — a team of senior designers and directors working across all three surfaces together. Research and strategy informed the design throughout, and the loop between the two kept our strategy grounded in stakeholder insights.
A key milestone mid-project was a major stakeholder conference where ADT needed to present to key decision-makers. We accelerated to mid-fidelity prototype quality faster than a typical process would allow, put it in front of executives, gathered feedback, and then went back and rebuilt more rigorously through the full process. The prototype landed well and gave us the validation to move forward.
The resident experience was the most interesting design problem. The expected features were all there — door access, maintenance requests, booking common spaces, smart home add-ons. But we pushed further. ADT’s core identity is security, and there was a real opportunity to extend that beyond the unit. We explored a companion model where ADT travels with the resident — including an SOS capability that works whether someone is home or not. The question driving it: what does it mean to be a security companion for a person, not just a product installed in a building?
Craft Team