General annoyance from an end-users perspective because think there should be a lot more cohesive in not only features and functions but also unifying the user-interface and seamless frontend experience for the native Matter, Z-Wave JS, ZHA (Zigbee) integrations so that the user experience (UX) design seem like they are part of the same product.
Could a single user experience developer rehaul the UI for those three integration be standardized between them and make them use exact same UI elements for features and functions that are practically the same or share very similar traits?
Should be important to focus on those for future partnerships too because of the “Works with Home Assistant” partnership program, and as an example; Aqara, Jasco, Leviton, and ThirdReality all sell various product series and use two (or more) of those three IoT standards, but configurations of them in Home Assistant is very different if they do not use the same IoT standard:
Matter, Z-Wave JS, ZHA (Zigbee) integrations represent the largest mainstream IoT standards that a majority of new Home Assistant are likely to use and therefore I think that a first goal could be to at least try make those look and feel like the same person have designed the all similar UI elements for overall cohesion and unified look.
Matter devices based on Thread, Z-Wave devices, and Zigbee devices use similar mesh networking technology and connects via a radio adapter/dongle so share many similar functionalities, believe it should (in theory) be possible to get most Day-2 operations like device configuration: maintenance, network mesh monitoring, troubleshooting etc. to from the UI persective to seem like the user is really working with the same product regardless of which of those standard IoT protocols devices are using.
I know that Home Assistant is a collaborate effort and that there are totally different developers working on those integrations, however the backend code components for all of those have native integrations maintained by Home Assistant core developers that are employed by Nabu Casa so here is hoping that they could put their new UX (user experience) design lead on putting together a list of things in the UI that could be broken out and be used as shared building blocks for cross-team collaboration.
References:
- Design Systems: The Backbone of Cohesive and Efficient Design - DEV Community
- Designing Cohesive & Seamless Product Experience | Encora
- Creating Consistency in UX: Why a Cohesive Design Matters | by Meri Sargsyan | UXCentury | Nov, 2024 | Medium
- The Brand Consistency Imperative: Why Cohesive UI UX Design is Essential for Brand Success - Onething Design