Masonite: Designing an adaptive smart door system

I designed the keypad UI, interaction flows, and system behavior across glass, lighting, and authentication states, while creating journey maps and facilitating alignment between design and engineering.

Prior to any design work, we conducted extensive research across user needs, technical feasibility, and market opportunities, exploring everything from sensor types and materials to IoT ecosystems and competing door concepts.

Research surfaced two target segments: Committed Curators, who expect technology to feel intentional, and Purposeful Upgraders, younger affluent users who want automation that simplifies their lives.

I mapped four critical scenarios: daytime and nighttime homeowner access, guest entry, and delivery drop-off.

For each scenario, I built detailed journey maps documenting every interaction point from approach to entry, capturing system triggers, UI feedback states, potential failure points, and fallback behaviors. These maps gave the team a shared language for how the door should behave in any given moment.

One of the most challenging aspects was designing a keypad UI projected onto wood using Invisitouch technology. Working closely with the software engineer, I focused on high contrast elements, adaptive brightness, and a minimal footprint so the UI disappears completely when not in use.

A key constraint was smart glass availability, limited to 12x24 inches, significantly smaller than a standard door insert. We worked directly with the manufacturing unit to redesign the door insert around it, building a custom door slab for the prototype.

The project culminated in a company-wide demonstration showcasing dual authentication, smart glass transitions, Invisitouch backup authentication, and adaptive LED lighting across both day and simulated nighttime conditions.

The demonstration helped align Masonite's teams on a shared vision for connected entry experiences across hardware and software. This contributed to Masonite's decision to continue investing in IoT based smart door systems as part of their future product direction.

This internship gave me hands-on experience designing at the intersection of hardware, software, and user experience. Designing for physical products pushed me to think carefully about fallback states, power constraints, and environmental variability.

Collaborating with engineers from day one also shaped how I communicate design decisions, grounding them in system behavior rather than aesthetics alone.

Due to NDA restrictions, the door prototype, technical specifications, and business outcomes are omitted.