Assignment Part 1:
For the design of a smart watch app, I decided to talk to people in the retail or fast food business, since they would most likely be too busy to be constantly checking their phones with customers waiting. Perhaps I would discover some way to aid their business by using a smart watch.
Interviewee #1:
I first interviewed a 25-year-old man working at an ice-cream shop on Telegraph Avenue. He recalled that the last time he wanted to use his smart phone was when he was in the shower. He wanted to answer a phone call, but his phone was outside the bathroom in another room. I asked him about his opinion about a smart watch which could perform the same task, always on and accessible from his wrist. He was thrilled to know that the touchscreen smart watch was waterproof, and he felt that answering a phone call from a smart phone that was in another room would be a convenient feature to have.
I asked him some more questions about his smart phone. As he reached for his phone in his pocket, his hand was caught by his apron. It took him a few seconds to retrieve his phone, especially since he had to take off one glove to do so. He had an iPhone 4, which he unlocked without a password. It would be fairly quick to access on an everyday basis, but not as fast when he was on the job.
Unfortunately, this did not give me too much insight into how a smart watch app could specifically help the demographic I was targeting. Missing calls because the receiver is in the shower could happen to anyone, not just ice cream servers or cashiers. The feature to pick up a call comes by default on a smart watch, and the hands-free functionality could easily be implemented by a simple bluetooth headset paired with a smart phone.
Interviewee #2:
The next person I interviewed was a 35-year-old retailer at a music store on Telegraph Avenue. At work, he mainly used his smart phone to look up items for customers such as albums, singers, and hits by latest musicians. The last time he was unable to access some information via his smart phone, his phone was charging in the basement of the store, and he was unable to reach his phone for a customer at the time.
I asked him also if having a smart watch would help him in case a similar event occurred again. The smart watch would be fully functional while his phone was charging in the next room, and he would have access to the requests of his customers. He said that he was familiar with a few of the recent smart watches, such as Samsung's Galaxy Gear 2, and the screen size would be too small for him to type and view his search results conveniently on the watch as opposed to his mobile phone. He said he doubted that a smart watch would be able to fulfill all the common functions of his smartphone with the same relative ease and user experience.
I asked to see how he interacted with his smartphone. He pulled out an iPhone 5 fairly quickly, since his hands were free at the time. As opposed to the first person I had interviewed, his job did not require him to wear gloves or an apron which would restrict access to his smart phone. Again, the functionality of searching the internet would be a default feature on a smart watch. However, other than using voice recognition as an alternative, I could not think of an enjoyable way to easily type a search query into the screen of a smart watch, or even view the search results on the relatively tiny display.
Assignment Part 2:
The following are ideas I have brainstormed to be potential applications on a smart watch:
Brainstorm Results:
1. Answering calls of smart phone via the smart watch
2. Integrating voice recognition with the google search engine
3. An app that an ice cream server can use: he/she taps a button on the watch to alert someone in the back room to bring out more supplies when depleted
4. A monitoring app that retailers can use: tap a button on the watch whenever a new customer comes in, and at the end of the day your phone receives a plot of peak hours, how frequently visitors come, etc.
5. Voice activated notification of authorities, in case of robbers (using code words)
6. App where a random funny image is scraped from the web and displayed every minute or so (like a screen-saver)
7. App that updates your location on Facebook whenever you open it
8. App that records voice memos as you are cooking/baking and automatically transcribes it into a recipe, with time stamps
9. App that maps out the room, tells you where wifi/cell service signal is strongest
10. App that measures pulse (fitness app)
11. Compass, magnetometer, gyroscope, etc.
12. RFID card, stores credentials, such as Cal ID, for easy authorization, banking, or swiping into a dining hall
13. App that detects if you're falling asleep, jolts you to wake you up. For example, can be useful to prevent sleeping while driving.
14. App that syncs with google calendars and gives you alerts when you have to leave
15. App that tells you when class enrollment has changed for some pre-selected courses
Due to a lack of insight from my two interviews, I expanded my target audience slightly to include anyone who is at work or on the go.
My favorite idea is the app to determine where the wifi signal is strongest (Idea #9). One way this could help retailers such as the latter one I interviewed is to quickly lookup items for customers by just standing a few feet away from where they normally are. Even so, this app would target many more types of people, since in today's world most people rely on fast internet for almost all tasks.
Prototype:
I based the homepage of the smart watch off of the iPod Nano 6th Generation device, with a simple interface for accessing apps and scrolling through "desktops":
After clicking on my app's icon (lower right corner), it would take you to a screen where it attempted to map out the room you were in at the moment using the built-in sonar modules:
Following that screen would be a display that beckoned users to walk around the current room, so that the app can gather data samples at various points in the room:
While the user moves around the room, the app will be updating its display with its current estimations of where the wifi signal strength is the strongest. I envisioned using Fourier Transform analysis to recreate the strong points in the room from the sample data as the watch is collecting and sending to the paired smart phone device for computation. To give the user immediate feedback, the display screen will then be updated real-time with a contour map depicting the strong wireless signal points in the room:
Finally, after a reasonable amount of data samples have been collected (exact number would be determined by experimentation and the size of the room), the app would display a picture of the room with dots where the signal strength is strongest!
User Response:
I surveyed a 25-year-old female working as a server and cashier in a food shop on Telegraph, since she was a retailer like the previous workers I interviewed. She liked the idea of having an app on a smart watch that told you where the wifi was best in a room, but she saw that a major flaw was that a user would have to walk around the room to figure out the best signal strength spot, which people already do with their cell phones. Also, she didn't like that the app took minutes to finish analyzing, and that most people would give up on it quickly.
My Analysis:
In retrospect, I found a few other shortcomings that my app had not addressed. What would happen if the user and the watch were outside? Would it display an error message? In that case, I think it would be best to display a circle, and measure the signal in a fixed radius of where the user was standing. What if the room was square? There should be a "You are here" label or arrow so that a person could move closer to that location. Better yet, the app could display a wifi "compass", which would point the user in the direction of best signal. In sum, this design, and likely the functionality, need a bit more work before it is put into production.
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