design-01-watches-in-the-wild

Part 1

Interview 1: 34 year old ER Hospital Worker who plays basketball at the RSF regularly

Interviewee 1 always has his phone is his pocket, unless he is at the basketball courts then he puts it inside a shoe on the sidelines.

The last time that he wanted to use his phone and he didn’t have it with him was when he wanted to text while driving because he knows it is illegal to text during driving. Also, he has wanted to bring his phone with him when he goes jogging, but is unable to do that. He would like to use his phone or something like it while jogging to text or call someone. When I brought up the smart watch, he hadn’t really heard much about it, but he says it sounds like a really cool concept. Things he would like to do on it are texting by talking to it, emailing with it, checking bus times with it, searching for stuff on it, and video chatting on it. He thinks it would be awesome if video chat could be enabled. When I asked him to perform what he thought video chatting would be like, he described it to be very similar to the iphone experience. A call would go through and you would swipe right to accept it. Then the little camera at the top of the watch would record you while you could see the other person on the main screen. I thought this would be very interesting because it would be a bit awkward to talk to someone while holding your wrist up the whole time, but when I asked him about that he thought he still thinks it would be cool to video chat through a smart watch.

Lessons Learned: One more thing that this interviewee brought up that I actually hadn’t thought about is using the smartwatch to track your diet and how far you travelled and walked. This would be really easy for a smartwatch to do, and would be a lot more convenient to use than running with a phone around. Eventually, he thinks that a smartwatch may be able to replace a smart phone because if it functions like a smart phone then he thinks society wouldn’t want to use the big hunky phone anymore. In general, he thinks that a smartwatch could potentially replace the smartphone and just be a smaller version of it that is always attached to you. A common lesson in this interview was just making the smart watch have the same apps and functions that a smart phone would have. Things like messaging, calling, and using certain apps that could fit on the screen. The interviewee also mentioned how he would be thrilled to use something like this if it wasn’t “break your wallet” expensive.

Interview 2: 25 year old worker in the Big 4 accounting industry from SF

Interviewee 2 always has his phone in his pocket.

It was hard for him to think of when he needed his phone and didn’t have it. After a minute, he gave me a short list of when he wants to use his phone but usually cannot. This list included: driving, eating, washing his hands, because his hands are wet, and biking. A use case he described when his hands are wet and he needed to use his phone would be when he would try to press and hold the home button to get Siri on. When he needs his phone but it’s not available, he is usually trying to read something on the mobile phone already and he wants to continue doing that while doing another activity. When asked how he would use it with a smart watch interface, one thing he mentioned that he would be certain of is that he wouldn’t want to be reading on a watch. The main reason he lists is because the screen would be small. This interviewee had some general information on what a smart watch was and could do, so he knew more than the other interviewee in terms of possible specs.

Lessons Learned: One thing he also mentioned is having the smart watch read an article for you. One useful thing he would really use a smart watch for is reminders, just something he could glance at. Another thing he said he would use it for would be for proximity to certain things, an app like yelp. Bookmarks for Yelp by syncing some of the data your smart phone would have. When he bookmarks places he doesn’t actually bookmark the exact location, but if the smart watch reminded him that he is near one of his bookmarks, he may be a lot more likely to visit. I thought that this was actually a really interesting idea and something I may try to prototype later. When I brought up the idea of messaging through talking (ex. Siri interface), he said messaging through a smart watch would not be a good idea. He would use it if it were a lot more accurate, also a lot of times the smart watch wouldn’t be able to pick up on slang.

Commonalities

A commonality between both interviews is that the functions that the smart watch should have should be similar to those of a smart phone. Both recognized that using fingers could be hard, so using some sort of voice control to navigate the app would be easier. Another thing that was pretty common is that both interviewees recognized that the smart watch would be a good place to have notifications because you wouldn’t have to pull your phone out of your pocket to check your notifications. Also, help while driving and having maps and music was something both interviewees mentioned. Another common thing was that both interviewers keep their smart phones in their pockets, usually in their left pocket. They also both mentioned when they listen to music they keep the phone in their pocket.

Part 2

Brainstorm of ideas

1. An app that can check the nearest bus stop and time going in a certain direction; I imagine it essentially just having the user say where he or she wants to go and then the watch will automatically direct them to the nearest bus stop and have an ETA of when they will get there

2. App that checks if the bus is late; the user will type in the bus he or she is taking and it will say if the bus is going to be on time, early, or late

3. Video chatting on the smart watch; it will work essentially just like facetime where you can accept or decline a call and the camera will be a small one on top of the screen

4. Weather on the smart watch; the watch will detect your location or you can input a location and it will say the weather

5. Maps on the smart watch; this will work just like google maps on the smartphone except you can zoom in and out with button on the sides

6. Notifications for when you are near something that you have bookmarked before; essentially this is just on at all times and will have a pop up when something is near and have a list as well to see what things are close

7. Find your smart phone app; the user can open this app and tell it to either call the lost iphone or play make it vibrate

8. Twitter tweets on the smart watch; just a live newsfeed of tweets that the user can see on their newsfeed

9. Something that tracks your run every time; something that tells the user how far they have run, how many steps they have taken, their heart-rate, and how many calories were burned

10. Soundcloud like app on the smart watch; app that can play music streamed from your phone or a LTE connection

11. Something that can silence a smart phone if you have the watch on you; an app that will connect to your smart phone and you can silence it through your watch if it rings

12. An app that connects to other smart devices and you can turn things on and off with your watch; the interface will be something like you can choose which device to access and then choose to turn it on or off or raise or lower volume

13. Sleep tracking app; you can wear the watch while you sleep and it will track REM and how many hours you slept; sort of like a fit bit idea

14. Timesheet tracker to see how long you were in the office or working for; takes out the need to clock in and out of work; will remind you how long you were in the office for and when you can leave if you are working an hourly job

15. Calendar app, with reminders; works just like the calendar app and has reminders

16. Calculator; a typical calculator application that you can use to calculate simple equations

17. A payments app that would be like venmo

Prototype

After much brainstorming, I decided I would choose to design something for the average worker who uses public transportation to commute to work every day. This app was number 1 on my list. I chose this app because I think that this idea could improve commuting times and relieve stress for the average user; by being able to check for busses near you, it can encourage users to ride public transportation more and be more efficient with timing because it would let the user know exactly when they would have to be at the stop.

I built the watch from cardboard and just used paper to write out the watch face screens. There is a rubber band at the back to allow different sized wrists for this cardboard watch. Below you can tab through pictures of the screens and what the watch will look like. Some of the pictures are just pictures of the screens.

Basically, the home screen of the application would ask you where you wanted to go. Then it would take you to a menu of busses that can take you there and the different times that they would come. You select a bus and time, and then it will give you a map of where the bus is and an approximation of how long it will take to walk to the bus stop. After the ETA of walking time is up, it will ask where you are (on the bus, at the bus stop, missed the bus) and this will redirect you to a new page. Once you are actually on the bus, you can click a button and that will then show you what stop to get off at and how long it will take to get there.

Testing the Prototype/Feedback

The person I decided to get feedback from was my housemate. He thought the idea would definitely be helpful, but the design of my app could be a lot prettier and definitely needed refining. 

Here is the feedback that he gave me and the insights I got from it: 

· His initial reaction was that this app looked really simple and didn’t have much on it, which he actually thought was a good thing because it is a smart watch and there isn’t much screen space. He also mentioned the cardboard and paper making it look very rudimentary and not very high tech. He thought it would be cool if there could be a voice control command. He did enjoy the simplicity of the buttons and how easy it was to get what he wanted. He mentioned that all the relevant information was all right in front of him and that was a good thing. I think the amount of information is just enough and that it shouldn’t be changed.

· He thought that the main problem I would run into for this app is accuracy of the data. He has used an app like this on his smartphone called NextBus and one of the things he hates most is the fact that it is usually incorrect and inaccurate. So, he says if this app were actually accurate then it would be awesome, but if not it would die quickly. I agree with his feedback and feel that to make this app a success the data would have to be accurate, which is why I added in the feedback form at the end so that users can see how accurate this app is.

· He was a bit confused at first as to whether or not it was a touch screen or if there were buttons on the side of the watch that he had to press. He suggested that the first time users be walked through with a tutorial on how to use the app, especially because it would be on a smartphone so most users would definitely not really know how to use it. I think that most users would know it is a touch screen interface, and adding in a tutorial may make the app seem too tedious and slow.

· He thought that the maps part would be an awesome addition, but could be even better if you could zoom in and out of the map to look at the streets. Also, he said if this could just recommend a bus immediately instead of having the user choose that would be really time efficient as well. I think that could be a great idea to see where all the other buses are and it would help you let someone who is waiting for you somewhere to know exactly where you are at a certain point in time (like cross streets).

· An issue that also came up was how does he exit the app, and that is something that I didn’t really address. Also he wondered how he would be able to type in the location he wanted to go, and I mentioned that that would be inputted through voice control or touch screen.

· He thought the rating page at the end wasn’t very useful, and said either to make the ratings more detailed or take them out entirely. I can see his point of view, and would make the survey a bit more detailed.

· He mentions that the design should be a bit more artistic, and I definitely agree with him on that point. I drew up the screenshots extremely quickly and would definitely like to make it more artsy if I had more time. One idea that this gave me was making the maps thing funnier with a funny picture representing the bus and the person and the trail to get to the bus stop.

Overall, he thought that the design was ok and the idea has potential. But, with such quick prototyping he knows that there is a lot more work to do if we were to actually make this application. In general, it was easy to understand but it could have been because he has used an application like this before. I think the key takeaways from the testing phase are mainly to 1. make sure the user knew how to interact with the application and 2. make sure that the information that is on the application is enough to do what the goal of the application is.