Work
Adam Laskowitz

Target Open House

Open House is a space for Target to tell an Internet of Things (IoT) story and educate its guests, partners, and executives. It is a learning lab from which many potential new businesses can grow in the emerging industry of IoT.

Target Open House — cover

The core question

How can Target create a shopping experience for smart home products and apps to give guests a real understanding of how they work, especially when most of these products and apps are being developed by startups?

Project facts

Timeline
Kicked off in Oct 2014, launched July 2015, store closed in Mar 2020

My role
Creative technology, architecture, user research, strategy, partnerships

Team configuration
Large cross-functional team with product, design, UXR, engineering, business strategy, store merchandising, brand/marketing, external partners

Physical prototyping

Open House started as a concept called “IoT Playground” where we rented storefronts in San Francisco to prototype out retail experiences with smart home products. These spaces served as user research, technical explorations, and design concepting.

Most importantly though, these spaces provided a tangible idea where we could bring in startups building smart home products to start engaging with them differently. Startups and retailers were struggling with the smart home category, and we approached the conversation differently.

Playground #1

With the first playground we started hosting events with startup founders and smart home industry experts to bring everyone together, understand the retail challenges from their perspectives, and build strong, collaborative relationships that would continue into the official launch of the store.
With the first playground we started hosting events with startup founders and smart home industry experts to bring everyone together, understand the retail challenges from their perspectives, and build strong, collaborative relationships that would continue into the official launch of the store.

Playground #2

Ultimately, we created 3 full IoT Playground experiences and several smaller tests before truly understanding the potential and direction to take the formal store design and strategic development.

The app ecosystem

One of the biggest challenges in buying smart home products is that the physical device itself isn’t what truly defines the user experience. The real value lies in the apps that control these devices and how they connect with other apps to create seamless automation. Our challenge was to translate this complex, digital interaction into a compelling retail experience.

Impact: expanding nationally

Shortly after the launch and clear success we saw immediately (consistently 3,000+ weekly visitors), we started working with the larger store design team for testing aspects of Open House in traditional Target stores. By late 2016, we helped the stores teams launch a full experience to a handful of stores and mini experiences to hundreds of stores, along with bringing never-before-seen products to Target nationally.