Part One: Interviewing Strangers
I had hoped to target music enthusiasts for my subjects, so I headed over to Amoeba on Telegraph to see how its employees and customers use their smartphones.
Interviewee #1: Music fanatic and Amoeba employee, 27.
The first person I interviewed was working the counter at Amoeba. We chatted a bit about constant connected nature of people and their technology, namely, smartphones. Due to his distaste with "constantly feeling connected", my interview subject told me that he didn't really use his phone, using it only for fantasy baseball. He expressed frustration with his iPhone 4's constant crashing and rebooting and accidental launching of apps on his home screen. However, in looking at the home screen of his phone, he seemed to have more than a few apps. I realized that I needed to refine my definition of apps, which he had immediately associated with games, to a broader definition of general phone activities and utilities.
After doing so, the subject expressed frustration with his Maps app, which only provided directions for walking and driving. He told me about trying to get himself home via the bus after work and the tediousness of looking for the bus stops in his vicinity, locating the correct bus, followed by finding the best bus times.
When I asked him how he'd like this feature in a smart watch, he described an automatic swipe notification to launch him into a bus stop map app at the correct times after work. Or alternatively, a simple "Find me" button on a map to tap to list all bus stops and bus times within a customizable radius.
Interestingly enough, despite disliking the feeling of being connected constantly, the subject still wanted an app on a smartwatch that would "be connected" in knowing when he needed this bus scheduler feature.
Interviewee #1.5: Button organizer and 7'' vinyl salesman, 29.
The second, or 1.5th subject I interviewed was not as receptive to my questions. He told me of his love for his Android and how well it functioned for him, but when I asked of any problems or annoyances with his device, he said he had none, that his technological prowess made his phone function just the way he wanted. I inquired about any features he might have wanted, in which he told me that he liked "being in control" of how he used his phone, disliking how new Android features such as Google Now know too much about his life.
Similar to my first subject, he disliked the "connectedness", desiring the ability to "exercise his brain" with technology. This made me realize that users like feeling like they're in control. Designers design with usability in mind such that it feels so intuitive users feel that it was their idea in the first place.
Interviewee #2: Wife of vinyl enthusiast and Cal Bears fan, 55.
On my way out, I ran into a curious 55-year old lady coming from the Cal football game who inquired about my smart watch prototype. Waiting for her husband to finish browsing the records, she was bored and excited to talk to me.
She told me about her Samsung smartphone that was constantly in her purse, which she had trouble accessing at the game where she had a lemonade in one hand and sunglasses in the other. She had been wearing her reading glasses which had fallen off her nose in excitement from Cal's touchdowns, and thus, wanted to text her friends; however, she had no way to do so.
She expressed frustration with the keyboard on her Samsung that required her to tap all buttons just slightly to the left, which led to lots of key misses, explicitly mentioning the fat fingers problem in which keys just couldn't be accurately hit. She was really excited about the new smartwatches rumored to come from Apple, but realized that her keypad frustrations would not be alleviated by a smartwatch. Thus, she told me that she'd like quick response messages to be shown on the watch face. These quick response messages would be swipe-able on the watch face, and selected and sent with a quick double-tap on the message itself.
My interviewee brought up a really cool idea: the watch face should be removable with a band that was virtually unnoticeable as a smart watch (i.e. jewelry / bracelet). This way, she could easily attach the watch face when she needed it and not be worried about someone snatching it off her wrist.
Summary
I noticed a similar pattern across all my interview subjects: all of them shared the same desire for a smart watch that didn't look like a smartwatch, but for different reasons. The subjects in their late 20s were concerned mainly with not wanting to admit their connectedness, while the 55-year old subject was worried concerned about only having the smart watch functionality when she wanted it. Though their concerns differed, they could be addressed by the same design decisions of maintaining a "normal" watch look.
Part Two: Prototyping
Brainstorm
1. Fantasy [insert sport] notifier: When one's fantasy team has updates or changes, a short description, in notification form, can flash on the smart watch and swiped up to open up for more details, and swiped horizontally to dismiss
2. Navigation app: My dad frequently struggles with holding his phone to his face while driving, which is not only inconvenient, but also extremely unsafe. A smartwatch could show step-by-step instructions with vibrating cues.
3. Smart Bus Scheduler: Inspired by my first interview subject, a smart bus schedule notifier would pop up a list of close bus stops with bus arrival times based off of ones school or work schedules that would be input in the app settings.
4. User-curated Quick Response messages: Used in conjunction with one's smart phone, a user could create a list of quick response messages to display when they received texts such that when the text notification shows up on the smart watch, they can swipe through their own personalized messages and select one to sent via double tap.
5. Music app integration: Spotify and Rdio have great mobile interfaces, but nothing for smart watches (yet). This could be a cool gesture-driven app to select and control music played on their smartphone instead of whipping out their phone constantly. Other features could include special playlist / radio control by selecting mood.
6. Recipe walkthrough: Similar to a google maps / navigation smart watch step-by-step, vibration based tool, a recipe walkthrough could be very nice on a smart watch, with next-step preview using wrist movements (i.e. shake, flip)
7. Nearby public events when you're near a venue walking around: A no-vibrating, no sound notification that pops up when you're near a building or venue that has events. This allows the user to look at their watch at their leisure if they're interested in finding something to do close to them. Users can set their own radius for events.
8. Source control integration for build or test failures: For software engineers, a notification system with sounds / vibrations based off of the seriousness of the failure. (i.e. vibrate for push fail, sound for test fail, long vibrate + sound for production errors)
9. Open seats / Waitlist notifier: For students who are struggling to get into courses, they can add classes they are interested in for immediate notification if they get in or seats open up.
10. Aura: Smartwatch edition: For your own list of friends you have "starred" it will notify you when you're close to them. This could prove useful instead of a "I'm here" or "I'm close" text. Alternatively, this could auto send messages for users to their friends
11. Lost phone finder: Due to the phone's connection to the smart watch, a button could call or force vibrate your phone when you lose it. It can also change the screen of your phone in case others find the phone.
12. Notify when sold out products become available: Like email notifications for products you wish you buy, this could send a push notification to your watch when something limited or something that has been sold out for awhile comes on sale.
Choice: #5 Music app integration
I chose to prototype a music app for a smart watch. Many people were bothered by being connected and distracted but with the limited app functionality of the smart watch, it would be nice for those who love music to be able to appear (or be) not as "connected" while still being able to have access to their music.
I drew out a sample workflow one might see when using a music app on their smart watch. I tried to incorporate feedback from users I had talked to by keeping the watch screen as normal as possible.
I drew the screens with the basic user interface a user might observe; though I had gestures in mind for the app, I wanted to see how users intuitively thought the app should flow.
I essentially wanted an example flow of how one would navigate from their home screen to the music app in which they could browse their music collection and select music to play with functionality such as skipping songs, putting songs on repeat, and shuffling. This involved some careful placement of the menu items, which I created with inspiration from the Windows phone design and Rdio web app. Though I wanted gestures and swipes to play a heavy role in navigating songs, I didn't place too much of that on the screens as I wanted to see how users would inherently think to do so.
When I tested my prototype on users, I asked each of them what they'd want to do next, and perform their intuitive action to get there. With that, I found many flaws in what I had assumed users would do, as well as a few holes in my design.
Feedback
- Familiarity: The app was organized in a familiar fashion to that of several other music apps. One of the users commented that he expected that he expected smart watch converted apps to work exactly like their mobile counterparts. Though the interface was familiar, he noted that it was difficult to know how to navigate from screen to screen.
- Too much swiping: Both users agreed that there seemed to be too much swiping from screen to screen, creating a slow, more laggy flow. I think the only way to fix this is with some explicit buttons with less items on each screen to keep things less cluttered with the "fat fingers" problem. On a positive note, users did like the horizontal swiping between Artists, Albums, and Genre's.
- How do I get back to the menu? One of my users got confused once she had entered the collection and started browsing, telling me she wanted to get back to the playlists without pressing (or swiping) back a million times. I had assumed users would think to swipe the menu (Home, Playlists, Collection) out from the left hand side while using buttons to go back; however, this was clearly not the case. She had gotten stuck and had only continued to the next step because she felt she had no other option, which frustrated her.
- UI Improvements: Both users had a few comments regarding the track listing on the app, mentioning that they would expect the ability to play just one song at a time, preferring little play buttons over the track numbers (to which they asked "Why do I even need track numbers if they're in order?").
- Play controls: Users actually liked having the skip back and skip next song buttons over the swiping that I told them could exist if it felt natural. I thought that this would be troublesome due to the fat fingers problem, but I feel like removing the swipe to skip songs in favor of the buttons would make users happier.
- Where is the music playing? I had originally thought this app would be used just to control the music playing on one's smart phone, but I realized adding a feature of selecting where the music is playing would make the app more versatile. For example, users could control the music playing on their phone, or perhaps connect to a jambox or external speaker system.
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