Watches in the Wild

Initial Interview

Documentation

User 1:  30 yr old worker at Momo Masala

• Uses phone mainly to communicate with friends (FB, instagram, what’s app)
  
• At work, cannot pull out phone to respond to message. Must wait until free time to respond (which is bad when messages need immediate responses). Conversations feel delayed and not in the moment because each person has to wait until they have free time to repspond.
  
• When has time to respond, typically 15+ messages from different people. Usually very tired during breaks, and the number of messages is overwhelming, so tends to procrastinate responding for days.
  
• Thinks wrist-worn devices would be less intrusive to use than smart phones and allow for quick replies by speech or automated messages (like “thank you” or “congrats”)

User 2:  Middle-age teacher and Trader Joe's shopper

• Uses phone mainly for communication (phone, text, social networking), transit schedules (BART), and news
  
• Doesn’t like how mobile apps/smartphones take a lot of attention and effort to use. Thinks it’s rude to use smarphones during conversations (takes attention away from other speaker).
  
• Keeps phone in backpack, and doesn’t like how much effort is needed to use phone (have to dig phone out of backpack, unlock phone, find and access app, lock phone, put it away).
  
• Would like a wrist-worn device that gives quick access to info, like BART schedule, text messages, phone calls
  
• Wrist-worn devices would reduce effort needed to use apps (on wrist always; don’t need to dig for phone).
  
• Wrist-worn devices should not take a lot of attention. Must be fast and quick to use.dsd
  

Notes/Analysis

Both people interviewed wanted wrist-worn devices to be less intrusive and attention sapping and quick and easy to use.  In addition, both used their phones primarily for communicating with others (esp. through phone, text, and social media).  They both also found it frustrating that their phones weren't always easily accessible, and liked the idea of a smart watch being always accessible.

Brainstorming Ideas

(chosen idea in bold)

1. Messaging app that taps you when a message has arrived. You can reply to message directly by lifting your watch to your mouth and speaking
   
2. App vibration intensity depends on the urgency/importance of message (i.e. light tap = unimportant, light vibration = more important, heavy vibration = very important/emergency)
   
3. Amount of info shown depends on who is contacting you (little info shown for spam and messages from unknown people, and more info for people who you know well)
   
4. Messages are color-coded based on sender (so you can easily avoid messages from people you don’t like)
   
5. People can reply to messages by drawing type acronyms on the screen (e.g. drawing “TY” for “Thank You”)
   
6. Automated messages are generated based on your pulse (higher pulse —> more excited automated messages)
   
7. When multiple messages are received from the same person, automatically combine into one long message feed
   
8. Force touching the screen triggers an animation that shows the message crinkling into a paper ball. Flicking the paper ball deletes the message.
   
9. Quick “save for later” reply feature allows you to automatically reply to a message saying you’re busy and will get back later, while filing the message in an easily accessible place.
   
10. (Piggy back off of idea #2): “Muffle” mode instead of “do-not-disturb” or “mute” modes that allows you to reduce intensity of all incoming messages, so that unimportant messages = no vibration, more important messages get light taps, and very important/emergency messages get light vibrations.
    
11. “Reactions” — allow quick replies to messages with emojis.
    
12. Watch speaks messages as they arrive (communicates to a bluetooth headset?)
    
13. When swiped left, messages project out to the left side of the watch onto your arm (assuming you have the watch on your left wrist).

Favorite Idea

Decided to choose Idea #13 to prototype further because felt it was the only idea that directly addressed the problem of messages being hard to read on a small screen. I also wanted to explore the idea of having a projected screen freeing up screen real-estate.

The multiple vibration idea (idea #2) and muffle mode idea (idea #10) were close seconds because I feel these ideas help solve the problem that alerts currently are treated as if they are equally important or urgent, even though they definitely aren’t (e.g. phone call from Dad is more important than an email announcement for a new product)

Prototyping Idea #13

Main interactions:

1. Slide left on a message on the watch to have message projected onto your arm (via a sliding animation)
   
2. Use watch as trackpad to scroll through a longer message when projected on your arm
   
3. Swipe left from right edge of watch screen to access automated messages (based on content of message and type of alert e.g. phone vs text message)
   
4. Press microphone to reply with an audio message.  Spoken message will appear on watch for review.  If confirmed, gets sent and displays a confirmation message.
   

Insights after User Testing

I approached the same person I interviewed at Momo Masala and had him test out the app prototype I brainstormed.

User: same 30 year old worker at Momo Masala

GOOD

• User thought projector idea made it easier to read long messages; liked how you could scroll using the physical watch as a scroll wheel
  
• Replying to messages by speaking was easy. Liked how you could confirm spoken message before sending. Liked how there was feedback when the message was successfully sent
  
• Really liked the automated messages. Exactly what the user wanted.
  
• Much more convenient than having to take out phone to reply. Was very pleased how easy/quick it was to check messages with a few swipes.
  

BAD

• At first didn’t know how to scroll the message when it was projected onto skin—Tried scrolling on skin instead of using phone as a trackwheel for scrolling
  
• No “cancel” button after recording a message, only “send” button
  
• Difficult to discover where the automated messages were. Better to use a button instead of sliding left from the right edge, which revealed a drawer.
  
• Didn’t like how messages were dismissed immediately after replying (could accidentally reply to message, and then no way to get back to message)

ADVICE (from User)

• When reading, autoscrolls? (maybe tracks eye movement)
  
• Include a projector keyboard to reply to messages as well
  
• I talked to the user about my vibration & “muffle” idea, and he thought it was a perfect solution to the problem of equally important messages (so long as which messages were “important” was configurable)
  

Take Aways

• User overall liked the new interactions and interface design I proposed.
  
• However, many of the interactions were not discoverable because of a lack of good signifiers.  
  
• In future designs, will need to focus on designing good signifiers to make initial use easier and more intuitive.