The goal of this assignment is to introduce you to iterative design. That way, during the main course project, the steps of the design process will be more familiar. You will observe and interview users, brainstorm, prototype, and get feedback. This is a two part assignment but it is all due on the same day.
Your task in Part 1 of this assignment is to learn about and document the difficulties that people face while using mobile applications on the go.
In Part 2 you will brainstorm ideas to overcome the challenges your observed in the first part of the assignment by redesigning one particular application into a smart watch interactive experience. You will also evaluate your design by obtaining feedback from potential target users.
InterviewsMy interviews were rather tangential in that the initial subjects I wanted to talk to were often unavailable. So I ended up meeting some very interesting but unplanned individuals, and I think I learned a lot more about a group of users that aren't that invested in smartphones or mobile technology.
The general conclusion was that communication is definitely an area that can be made more convenient. Anything that involves timely actions on the go may be able to become a watch application. However, more involved tasks should not be tackled because they can be handled far better by a computer. All three definitely consider the computer to be their default workstation.
1. Faculty Assistant, Haas School of BusinessI was planning on talking to a professor who travels a lot, but I was told to come back after this assignment was due. So I interviewed the faculty assistant who was helping me out instead.
Summary:
Physical feedback is still very important - my interviewee owns a Droid 4, which is probably one of the last smartphones to have a physical keyboard. For her, having that QWERTY layout physically present is really important for ease of typing. She's been holding off getting a new phone for a while because she knows she'll miss the keyboard on any new model.
For the applications she needs for her work - documents, spreadsheets, and Asana for project management, the smartphone screen is already too small, and the computer is still the workstation of choice. From the conversation I had with her, I definitely got the impression that her smartphone was not something she had the urge to hang onto and check often. She didn't touch it at all during out interview except to show me the keyboard, and it was difficult for her to think of situations in which she wanted or needed to use her phone but it was inconvenient to access.
If she could make something more convenient on the smartphone, it would be arranging time-sensitive meetings with people when she has to be out and about running errands instead of in the office with a computer. Currently she has to arrange it through texting back and forth.
Fun conversation
When I asked her to imagine arranging meetings with people on a wrist-worn mobile device, she told me "I don't wear anything on my wrists." No watches, no bracelets.
2. Cal Lightweight Crew CoachThis interviewee was in his sixties, and he had just gotten his iPhone 6 months prior. I met him at the Campanile after their evening land practice run had just started. I forgot to ask him to take a picture with me because he needed to go meet his runners.
Summary:
As part of an older generation that grew up without computers, he ended up talking to me a lot about his past and what he sees as the "invasion of quiet" and the loss of knowing what it is to be alone. Questions about when he wanted to use his phone but was inconvenienced didn't really work because he was against the idea of more interconnectedness and more technology in general. The exception to this was his fervent wish for some kind password to rule them all, to take way the hassle of remembering so many different accounts.
I did glean that he checks his phone often in order to communicate with his team, starting right when he wakes up at 4am to drive over to Oakland where the team holds morning practice. He has to check if any of his students text or email him about not being able make it to this practice. For crew, having everyone there is important because your rowing mates literally can't start without you. After practices he takes his roster home and writes check-in emails to the people who weren't there that day, asking what happened and whether or not they can make it to practice the next day.
As a coach for a team that measures performance in terms of speed, it's important to have a stopwatch. He needs to time multiple trials going on, so having split capabilities is a necessity. Waterproofing is also an obvious need. While he didn't really think much of it, he did describe driving a motorized boat to coach the rowers - a situation in which taking out a phone is definitely not the best option.
Fun conversation
At the beginning of the interview, after I asked him for some initial background information, he turned things back on me and asked about my weight. I was kind of taken aback at first - but then he explained that I looked "pretty athletic" and was within the lightweight crew weight limits: did I want to join the club? So my interview almost turned into his pitch for crew instead of a user interview.
3. Cosmetologist and Academic AdviserSummary
Unlike my first two interviewees she was comfortable with her phone and used it much more in her daily life. She reads the Bible on her phone first thing in the morning, and uses a mix of work and entertainment apps throughout the day.
Driving was her inconvenient time to use her phone. She will pull over to take care of important messages, or use voice activation for short responses. In order to check the nature of the alerts, she waits till a light or uses hands-free mode so that her phone can read it to her. One trouble with voice activation is the fact that she still has to undo the screen lock - which involves looking down at the phone and touching it.
Her job as a cosmetologist involves using both hands a lot - washing, combing, cutting, styling, drying hair. However, she doesn't need her phone while working with a customer - she can describe styles by using a client's actual hair instead of searching for a photo on her phone, and generally finds it to be bad practice to be checking messages while she's supposed to be providing a service. The same thing was true for her work as an adviser - while she's talking with students she'll mute or ignore her phone completely during the meeting.
When I asked about a 'mobile device you wear on your wrist' she immediately jumped to smartwatches. Some thoughts she shared with me:
One - is it possible to make the watch look more like "just a watch" so that it's not glaringly obvious it's something valuable to take, like it is with smartphones?
Two - most smartwatches now are bulky and she wanted a thinner, more stylish one that would have less of a "men's watch" feel.
Fun conversation
She started describing her imagined smartwatch that could answer calls - so I asked her to draw it for me.
- Quick task assignment/memos instead of full-blown project management app: screen estate already super small on phone; what can a watch do to counter this? Be more accessible and immediate. Thought of streetpassing where you can be near someone else and give them stuff/participate in something together.
- Appointment scheduling, fast version: Instead of getting calls asking when you're available, a quick 'time/date ?' --filters out impossible times based on existing calendar; just asks yes/no for an open time in your schedule.
- Messaging/phone with voice commands: because the smartphone screen is locked; can't check things in the car even w/ voice activation
- Sports team organization/general group attendance: Attendance/"I won't be there for practice" instead of having to receive texts/emails.
- Stopwatch that can time multiple trials + assign them to indiv accounts: waterproof smartwatch that can time and record all in one.
- Watch as your 'password': be a keyring/passport; as long as it's with you, you won't have to press 'forget password' anymore. Difficult security-wise though; definitely lots of risk involved.
- Grocery expiration date alarm: From hearing people talk about what to cook - look up what's going to go bad soon in your fridge...
- Librarian app: find books shelved in wrong places, look up Dewey Decimal numbers, etc: wanted to talk to librarian but never got to. Chatted w/ circulation lady briefly, thought of this.
- Water conservation app: while you're washing dishes or veggies you can set a timer/some kind of water usage calculator. It'll vibrate or notify you at certain limits.
- A watch with pepper spray + emergency phone call: Thought of this while walking home in the dark.
- An app that lets you know if you forgot anything at home: Well, this is only useful if you remember to wear the watch
- Bus stop app: Should just look it up for you based on location
- Drone watch: A watch that stores some mini-drone that can do tasks for you
I chose to make a roster application that would allow a coach like my second interviewee to keep track of attendance in one place, and be able to get alerts while on the go. Updates and record-keeping would all happen here, and be focused on team attendance - no more need to sift through other texts and emails, and then take the time to consolidate that information into one place.
I used a large rubber band for the wristband because I could adjust for wrist size using a large hair clip. It made the experience a little less like a real watch but it was very convenient for testing because I didn't have to worry about struggling to fit the watch on, or having it tear and break apart.
Most of the prototype is made from cardboard and paper screens. The screens had one edge that folded over so I could hook them onto the watch one by one as the user interacted with the watch.
I ended up talking with a previous high school basketball coach, then a grad student who was on a crew team for during undergrad. The original application was a limited concept with one functionality - keeping track of who's attending and who's not, but after speaking with a wider range of possible users I got a lot of feedback on how to improve the initial idea.
1. High school basketball coachSpecific screens were difficult to navigate or understand:
The list of names didn't have an explicit back indication anywhere. She didn't know how to return to the initial screen. In addition, she didn't want to have to select a name to find out their status - she wanted to be able to see that right away. Besides this screen though, she didn't have trouble with the navigation prompts and swiped or used voice activation pretty naturally.
This showed me that the screen wasn't clear enough about what it was displaying. The button she clicked on displayed just the people who were reported as absent for the day, so their status should have already been clear. By her response, however, I learned that wasn't the case at all.
The voice activation screen also gave her trouble: she expected the order of elements to be flipped around, but she was comfortable with searching by voice.
Once she found a specific member, she wanted to be able to contact them directly from the app to follow up or ask them what was going on.
First observation was that every single navigation action she did was a horizontal swipe to the right. She told me it was the motion she was the most used to and felt the most comfortable doing on a watch.
She also had some issues with the voice activated search feature. She hadn't really used Siri and so didn't know what to expect from the microphone icon. This means the prompt for that screen needs to be more explicit about what to do in order to search for someone's name, or else first-time users will be blocked at this point and be unable to proceed, unless the watch offers keyboard input.
As a crew member and not a coach, she pointed out that all her teammates would want to know about her status as well. She wanted a 'ping everyone' feature that could let everyone know that she was running late but would show up to practice, or that she just wasn't going to make it. I suggested a quick "On my way" button that could be pressed and she got pretty excited.
Next Steps- The unanswered question - how do team members update their statuses? I only considered it from the attendance-taking point of view so far. Very large oversight! Shouldn't the coach also be updating his/her status? Does this become a team communication app instead of just a roster?
- Users want to be able to communicate their status and respond to status changes in the app. Since watch I/O is still a shaky problem, the communication method might be pre-set messages that convey common messages ( like 'I'm on my way') instead of asking users to input custom messages. Since watches are expected to still be accompanied by some other device, a more extended version of the roster app could be installed on there that enables more detailed communication.
- The status of people on the roster need to be visible at a glance, instead of waiting for another screen. This could be solved with color indicators, or ordering of the list in an understandable manner (attending, late, not coming).
- There needs to be more clarity in terms of exactly what the app is showing a user. Is it all the team members, or just a subset of them?
- Better voice activation prompt so anyone can look at the screen and tell what's going on
- Clear up navigation prompts: make sure each screen has a way of going back to home
- Do more tests on how people feel most comfortable navigating on a watch. Is it a side swipe, like my second tester, or is it the original up/down swiping that the first tester had no problems with?
- What about multiple teams and groups? Can the app do that?
- What about multiple events during the day - morning and afternoon practice?
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