HOMEBODY – UNIVERSAL GESTURE CONTROL CONCEPT
Inventing a believable future for smart home gesture control — as a design hoax.
To celebrate April Fools’ Day, frog’s IXD team set out to design a speculative, tech-forward product hoax. I pitched the concept of HOMEBODY — a gesture-controlled smart home system powered by a fictional “universal action library.” I led concept development, storytelling, and branding, turning satire into a surprisingly prescient view of future UX.
Role
Concept Lead, Story Designer
Timeline
4 weeks, March 2020
Platform
Web, Video, Speculative Product
Team
frog Interaction Designers, Visual Designers, Strategists
Before (Challenge) → After (Solution)
frog’s internal IXD team wanted a fun, future-facing “design hoax” to build culture and buzz on April 1. → Created HOMEBODY — a believable gesture-control product ecosystem complete with branding, demo video, and a fake product site.
Needed a memorable, funny concept that still demonstrated strong UX thinking. → HOMEBODY struck a balance between satire and believability — offering a glimpse into speculative smart home interaction.
Web page presentation mockup
Impact
Result → Outcome
Full hoax experience built in <2 weeks → Complete concept site, branding, motion assets, and physical packaging mockups created
Shelved in April 2020 due to COVID-19 → Reconsidered for inclusion in frog’s future-facing trend reports
Proved culturally relevant months later and is continuously becoming more realistic. → Gesture-control devices gained momentum post-release (see: Mashable article and Facebook’s Gesture Control Wristband).
Design POV
"Satire is a mirror. The best hoaxes aren’t just funny — they reveal something true about the future. HOMEBODY did just that, predicting ambient, multimodal, low-friction interfaces before they hit the market."
Key Reflection
“I’d revisit this idea in today’s climate — not just as a hoax, but as a compelling interface strategy for hands-free living, and as training data for humanoid robots to learn household chores effectively.”