DESIGN 01: Watches In the Wild

PART 1:

Interviewee #1: Guy-waiting-for-friend-at-BART-Station

Observation:

While walking around Downtown Berkeley, I spotted this man outside of the BART station. He was tapping his feet, constantly pulling out his phone to check something (presumably the time, or some information). He seemed like someone who could very obviously benefit from a smartwatch device.

Interview:

1. When I asked if I could interview him, Interviewee #1 told me that he was waiting for his friend to arrive from BART and may have to leave. As I observed before I interviewed him, Interviewee #1 keeps his smartphone in his pocket.
2. When I asked him about the last time he wanted to do a task but didn't want to take out his phone, he told me that he hates having to keep pulling out his phone to check the time. But as for a specific task at that moment, Interviewee #1 said that he was tired of having to keep checking the BART schedule for when his friends would arrive. He also never knew exactly which BART train they were on.
   
3. I asked Interviewee #1 to imagine he had a smartwatch that was capable of the task he wished to perform. I then asked him how exactly he would want it to work. He told me that he didn't see the point in a smartwatch. At first, he suggested that the watch could give him the BART schedule when he would happen to be near a BART station. After a few seconds, however, he said that a better idea might be that if his friend also wore a watch, the app would know what train he or she is in. Then, the watch could buzz or light up to tell him ETA and an arrival notification. Finally, he suggested that the watch could show him a hologram with an arrow to point to where is friend is (in the case that he or she got out at a different exit).

Interviewee #2: Berkeley-city-ambassador-who-welcomes-tourists-and-sweeps-street

Observation:

Interviewee #2 is a Berkeley City worker. When not passing out tourism flyers to those exiting BART, the man sweeps the streets and maintains an overall clean public space. Upon seeing that he always seemed to have his hands full, Interviewee #2 seemed like someone with a clear need.

Interview:

1. Since he works on his feet all day, Interviewee #2 doesn't want to carry any unneeded accessories. Still, however, he wants his smartphone with him at all times. As such, he keeps his phone in his pocket.
   
2. With his hands always busy, Interviewee #2 often wants to check his phone but can't. The last task he wanted to do was send and check texts to/from his family. In general, he said that family messages are important to him. However, when he can pull out his phone, he finds that the notification was caused by another app or an unimportant text.
   
3. Interviewee #2 said that he would be interested in getting a smartwatch in the future. On such a device, he would want notifications for apps to pop up as they do on his phone. However, he said that on a watch interface, he would be able to glance at it rather than pull out his phone for something unimportant. When pushed specifically about the texting task, the man suggested that he might be able to select important people that he knows, where texts from these chosen people would be the only ones to buzz his smartwatch. He also said that, without pressing any buttons, he would want to say "I want to send a text", and then speak his text.

Interviewee #3: Safeway-shopper-who-cooks-every-day

Observation:

For my third interview, I wanted to get away from the Downtown Berkeley BART area. Instead, I headed over to the area around Safeway in North Berkeley. I figured that people who cook frequently could obviously benefit from a smartwatch interface. Thus, for Interviewee #3, I targeted someone who had just completed shopping at Safeway.

Interview:

1. Interviewee #3 commutes to work every day. He carries all of his stuff in a backpack, including his smartphone.
2. He told me that he and his wife cook together after work every day (good ol' progressive Bay Area resident). Though they used to pay for costly cookbooks, now they can find all the recipes they need online for free. The problem though, he said, is that while you don't care if you get a book a little dirty, you do if it's an expensive smartphone/tablet/laptop. He told me that his last task was wanting to check a recipe he was cooking, but not wanting to interact with his phone due to his hands being dirty.
3. Interviewee #3 acknowledges that a smartwatch may be useful to him, but is concerned about being too connected and having too many redundant gadgets. On a potential smartwatch, however, he would want a recipe to be constantly on the screen. Without touching it, he would want to say something like "Next" and have it move on to the subsequent step. He also suggested that the app could speak to him so he doesn't have to divert his eyes. Finally, the man suggested that it would be cool if he could press a button on the watch to project the recipe against a wall in a large, readable screen (similar visually to a webpage of a recipe).

Conclusion

Though some of the ideas seemed either a little far-fetched or basic, I was able to empathize with many of their frustrations. I learned that in general, there was a strong sentiment towards wanting to 'free' themselves from their smartphones. All interviewees seemed frustrated by having to constantly pull out their phone and keep their concentration focused on its screen. At the same time, however, there was an understandable skepticism about the smartwatch form factor. One clearly shared opinion is that none of the interviewed people wanted to do much reading or touching of their devices. If there had to be any, it seemed to be for only quick and small things. There was a clear suggestion from all of them to include some sort of voice feature for input/output, as well as a way to notify them only of events important to them at that time (context-aware).

PART 2:

Brainstorm (I bolded my favorite ideas for each app) 

Ideas for Meeting with Friend App

1. Context-aware app that pops up the BART schedule for the station you happen to be near
2. Reads your calendar, sees that you're meeting someone, and is able to voluntarily track them to let you know when they arrive on BART. Can also let friend know when you arrive at meeting place.
3. With a quick voice command, allows you to share your location to a friend's watch
4. If friend is late to designated meeting time, sends notification to friend's watch as a reminder (and maybe suggests that they text the friend)
5. Using GPS, displays an arrow on the watch in the direction of your friend (like a friend compass)

Ideas for Family Communication App

1. Filters notifications from designated apps, and within that, from designated people
   
2. Uses speech-to-text to send messages to specific people, and can read texts from specific people given voice command (a Siri of sorts for smartwatches)
3. Displays recent "statuses" of family members (based on location, last sent text to you, etc.), and allows you to send them preset messages
4. Texting service that lets you specify the importance of messages, where a designated importance affects the recipient's watch notification

Ideas for Cooking App

1. Using touch or voice guidance, allows you to select a recipe, and subsequently guides you through the ingredients list and cooking steps
2. Audio-guided cookbook that guides you through the recipe
   
3. Uses an Airplay-like feature to push large webpage-like views of a recipe from the watch to any other digital screen
4. Allows you to set a timer, convert units, ask nutrition/combination/expiration/etc. questions, and other cooking-related requests using voice commands

My Favorite Idea

I picked #1 for the Cooking App because its utility seemed to best fit the form factor for the targeted group, as opposed to #2 from the Meeting with Friend App which seemed difficult for technology and privacy reasons, and #3 for the Family Communication App, whose function seemed better suited for smartphones using the many apps currently available.

Prototype

To make my prototype, I cut up cardboard from an Amazon delivery box using dull scissors from Daiso. I cut straight across using a ruler, and bent the resulting strip to somewhat replicate the shape of a wristband. My greatest challenge was the screen size. I knew I wanted to make a circular display (square displays look tacky and nerdy in my opinion), so I scoured my apartment for circular objects that would replicate an appropriate size for one's wrist. One of my [few] flaws as a human being came to the rescue, as my allergy medicine bottle had the perfect size. I traced this on cardboard with a pen, cut it out, and taped it to the wristband. I then traced the same shape on post-it notes, and cut that out.

Next, with the screen size and shape in mind, I sketched out designs for the different screens of the app. After a lot of scribbling on scrap paper, I finally drew my designs on the post-it note "screens" with a Sharpie. I also came up with touch and voice interactions that a user would do to transition between the screens. I wrote a sort of flow chart of this using pen and paper. I numbered each screen for prototype purposes. These numbers are not intended to be part of the design. Also, the oval in the Ingredients screen is meant to be a picture of an egg. My drawing just sucks.

Finally, I stapled the screens together, and attached them to the watch.

I also completed a detailed flow chart. With no Operating System UX elements to follow, I created a simple system where swiping right (or saying "Back") takes you back, swiping left (or saying "Select") takes you forward, and swiping up/down (or saying "Next"/"Previous") shows you different items in the list that you're looking at. This is similar to gestures currently used on smartphone operating systems.

Feedback

Note that for feedback, I initially did not give the subject(s) any help or information. If they became confused with how to navigate the app, I supplied them with the flowchart. These instances are detailed, where relevant, in my writeup.

Subject #1:

Subject #1 cooks every evening, and with a busy school schedule and multiple devices, often has similar frustrations to Interviewee #3. When trying out the prototype, Subject #1 commented that she liked the clear layout of the recipe on Screen 1. However, she said that she would like to see the Cook Time directly on Screen 1. Instead then, Screen 2's "More Info" screen would break down Cook Time into Prep Time, etc. and show servings. This is a great insight, because as someone who cooks but doesn't follow recipes, I previously did not concern myself with the importance of this distinction. Interestingly, when told that there were voice commands and before seeing the flow chart, Subject #1's natural commands happened to match exactly with those I had chosen. She said that the voice commands are intuitive and make sense. However, she had difficulty navigating the app using touch gestures. She said that the gestures were not obvious, and gave no indication as to what they would do. As she progressed through the screens, Subject #1 complemented the visual design for its "glanceability" and its clear organization. She said that it was a good idea to focus on each recipe, ingredient, and step one at a time given the small screen on the watch. In general, while Subject #1 said that the app was useful and the user interface was attractive and logically organized, the means of transitioning between screens via touch input was not always clear.

Conclusion:

Part of the challenge of this assignment, I recognize, is its abstract nature. Rather than design for an established form factor and design guide (ex. iOS on iPhone), we had to design for a new device that most people have not used before. On a smartphone, it is generally accepted that you swipe up to scroll down, and vice versa. Similarly, in a horizontal progression (like in a web browser), you swipe right to go back and swipe left to go forward. For ease, I tried to implement these common touch screen interactions into my app. Assumedly, on a system like Android Wear, these sorts of interactions would be designated or suggested. 

Given the nature of the assignment as it is, it is very understandable that the Subject had difficulty navigating the app. With no guidance, it may be unclear whether you tap or you swipe to access the next screen. This is the primary criticism given by Subject #1. In a way, it reminds me of a similar difficulty Apple had with iOS 7, where they placed arrows on the top and bottom of the lock screen to tell the user that there were new menus to be accessed. Perhaps this would be a reasonable alteration to make in future designs. Arrows can be placed on the screen to indicate what to do, and where such an action takes you. What can also be done is, instead of having a static image screen, display an in-screen transition that would briefly show instructions given the options of that particular screen. Finally, the first time a user uses the app, it could walk the user through a brief tutorial to explain the general gestures used for navigation.

In short, I was able to extrapolate a number of insights from the feedback:

• The visual design is clear and attractive
  
• The app has clear utility, and can easily be used to benefit someone's cooking experience, aka can satisfy the need identified in Part 1
  
• The speech controls were obvious and intuitive
  
• Once learned, the touch controls followed a logical flow and made sense
  
• The app was well-organized, and subsequent screens were expected given its function (Recipe name -> Ingredients -> Steps)
• However, the touch gestures certainly had a learning curve
• Certain gestures were not very intuitive
• App not necessarily easy to use without being taught its exact method of operation
• Finally, the cook time should be shown directly on the recipe selection screen
• The "More Info" screen would then break down the cook time into Prep Time, etc. and list the Serving Size