Interview 1:
The first person I interviewed was Thanh Hai Mai. Since Hai is an extremely tech-savvy employee at Google, I figured he would have insightful observations about wearable technology. First, I asked him when a smart watch could be useful. Hai replied that he often faced difficulties checking information when cooking. For example, when he is making his favorite Vietnamese dishes, sometimes he needs his phone to check a recipe, watch Youtube, or search for comments. In order to check his phone, he would have to wash his hands and then pick up the phone again, or save one clean finger to navigate the phone.
Next, I prompted Hai about what he thought were good ways to interact with a watch. Hai commented that voice interaction is the only option because the size of the watch screen is too small. A watch is useful when your hands are full, and thus the only good way to interact with it is through voice input. Hai thought gestures were too weird, since you don’t want people in public seeing you make weird gestures. Ultimately, the interactions must be natural feeling.
In conclusion, Hai thought a smart watch could be really useful but must have an easy, intuitive way of interaction. The watch must be smart in the sense that it can interpret his commands and execute them.
Interview 2:
The next person I interviewed was someone I met on a retreat to Lake Tahoe. Since Geobio seemed like a very sporty, adventurous person, I thought it would be interesting to talk to him about smart watches. First, I asked him when he thought a smart watch would be useful. He explained that there were many times when he wanted to know what time it was, but was too lazy to pull out his phone. There were also times when he received a text or message and heard his phone vibrate inside his bag, but couldn't decide whether it was important enough to pull out and check.
Geobio explained that a wristwatch could be useful in these cases, but might also be too overwhelming in others. “I don’t want to be constantly bombarded by a stream of information and notifications,” he said. Geobio explained that the smart watch has to learn what he cares about, perhaps based on habits or context. A watch doesn’t need to replace a phone. Ultimately, it should should be a way to help people be more productive, but should not be the main center of attention.
When asked about his hobbies, Geobio explained that he liked motorcycling and rock climbing. He noted that a watch could be useful during motorcycling if it had GPS functionality. It could also be useful for rock climbing since he doesn’t like to bring his phone when he climbs, but would like to be notified of urgent information.
Insights from the interviews:
The interviews helped me gain insights as to what users seek from a smart watch device. The most important insights dealt with the watch’s user interface, functionality, and intelligence.
User Interface:
Both: Both interviewees commented that the user interface must be familiar and/or intuitive to use. On the outside, both wanted the watch to be of a similar size and shape as ordinary watches that people wear today. On the inside, both my interviewees understood that the size of the screen was limited.
Hai: For Hai, since we humans have “fat” fingers, a good way to navigate would be through voice control. Ideally, the user would be able to navigate apps and issue commands by voice. The user should not have to make strange gestures or use the watch in ways that would make the user uncomfortable in a social setting.
Geobio: For Geobio, voice command was too disturbing to those around him. Instead, he liked tapping and swiping. Geobio requested an easy way to swipe between applications without having to open and reopen them.
Functionality:
Hai: For haI, the watch should support almost all applications that the smartphone can. It shouldn’t solve any new problems, but should make old problems easier to solve.
Geobio: For Geobio, the watch much have certain important core functionalities, but should not support too much that it becomes overwhelming. Some of the core applications that are important include voice and text messaging, GPS, looking up information, note taking, and scheduling. Geobio did not want wearable devices to have so many engaging applications that it becomes an omnipresent technology that distracts users from living life in real time. Instead, it should just help make life more productive.
Intelligence:
Both: Users liked the watch to be intelligent and implement “smart” algorithms.
Hai: For Hai, the most important role of intelligence would be for interpreting and executing commands by voice control. The watch should understand the user’s commands and execute the correct application.
Geobio: For Geobio, ideally, the watch would decide what information is important or interesting to the user and when to display that information. Machine learning technology could help predict for example what music the user wants to hear, or what nearby stores the user may want to peruse.
Brainstorming Ideas:
Collaborated with Jeff Zhang
1) A voice commanded control center. This would be a central control system that lets you navigate between apps and execute commands by speaking.
2) A text messaging application that allows you to send messages and emails via voice.
3) A two-factor authentication application. Whenever a site asks for two-factor authentication, such as Google Mail or Facebook, this app will allow your watch to send verification information.
4) Applications for viewing the time, date, weather, etc.
5) A calendar that allows you to schedule events and alerts you when they are happening. You can also view your schedule to be aware of upcoming deadlines.
6) An application that allows you to read and write notes in an organized fashion. The writing would have to be done through speech since the screen is too small for typing.
7) GPS navigation.
8) Information search and retrieval, similar to Google.
9) A payments system that allows you to give and receive money from others.
10) A health and exercise monitoring system. For example, it can measure your heart rate and keep track of your calories.
11) A travel, on the go camera such as GoPro
12) A way to easily share pictures with friends such as Instagram or Snapchat.
13) A music playing app that will store your songs but also play the radio and suggests songs based on your taste.
14) A calculator to perform mathematical functions.
Prototype
I chose to implement the payments application because such an application would be very useful in everyday life, and is potentially disruptive to many payments systems that currently exist today.
Flip though the photos slides below to view the application workflow.
Basically, once the app is opened, the home screen allows you to choose to make a transaction, view history, view account, or manage contacts.
To make a transaction, the user first selects to pay or charge. Then they select the recipient and the amount. Finally click the check button to confirm and the money is sent.
The view history page shows a list of past transactions.
The view account page allows you to view your balance and also change your account credit card information, or cash out.
The manage contacts page allows you to import contacts from your phone's contact list or search for people who are using the app by their names.
Testing with Users
For testing, I looked for users who often needed to send small payments electronically. Oftentimes, these are young people who go out and do activities with friends and have to split checks. This application could save a lot of hassle for them when they have to pay each other back, and would help decrease the number of forgotten payments and broken friendships.
The first user I tested the prototype with was Annie Yau. Annie uses iPhone applications such as Venmo, the mobile payments application, so I thought she would be interested in my smart watch payments application. I told her to simulate a scenario where she had to pay a friend $10 for a meal. From the beginning, it was easy for her to find the payments application from the home screen and click the transactions button and then the pay function that popped up. Next, she had to select who to pay, which was a bit confusing at first because it was unclear to her whether the blue highlight meant someone was already selected and she didn’t know she had to scroll through all the contacts in order to find the right person. In addition, if she had a lot of friends, the scrolling would take a long time. Next, she had to select how much to pay. Since the buttons on the screen were small, she noted that mistakes in entering the amount could be very costly. I also realized that I didn’t not draw in an enter button so she didn’t know how to proceed. Finally, the confirmation pay had a simple yes or no button that was intuitive and easy to approve.
The second user I tested was Cindy Lam. I gave her the same scenario. She was easily able to find the payments application and click on the transaction label and pay function. She also had difficultly selecting whom to pay because the screen was so small it was hard to click on the person. Instead, she suggested using voice control. Next she had to select how much to pay. She was also confused because there was no enter button, but commented that the size of the buttons was not a problem because it was just big enough for her to click. Finally, the confirmation page was very simple to approve.
Insights:
· In terms of the physical watch itself, the watch screen is a bit too big, as it does not fit completely flat on the wrist.
· While certain steps of the process are very simple to execute since they require pressing one of two large buttons (Yes/No), other processes that require more intricate selection are difficult to execute.
Choosing contacts is very difficult particularly for those with many friends because they have to scroll through the entire list and each person’s name is very small to click on. A better way to execute this step is to be able to speak the person’s name into the microphone and have it automatically selected.
Entering the payment amount may also be tricky because the size of the buttons and a mistake could be financially costly. A voice system would also fix this problem.
· There should be an enter button or intuitive way of recognizing when a step has been selected and the next step is waiting to be executed.
On the contacts screen, the person whose name is selected should change in appearance twice: once when their name is selected, and once when the user confirms that they want to send money to this person. This can be done via hover and click effects.
On the amount screen, there should be an enter button after the person has entered their final amount.
· The current prototype did well by breaking down the payments process into three simple steps that could be executed within a minute.
· The process was very intuitive, as the users did not have to ask what to do and knew exactly what was happening at each step.
· The confirmation page was useful because it is easy to make mistakes and it was good to be able to double check.
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