Design 01: Watches in the Wild!

Subject #1: The Hair Stylist

My first interviewee was my 27-year-old hair stylist who works at Tomo & Company for Hair in Alameda. She’s originally from Vietnam, is married, and currently has no kids. When I asked her to recall a specific time she needed to use her mobile phone but wasn’t able to access it, nothing came to mind (I think she may have felt a little pressured), so I asked her more specifically how she uses her phone while at work. Since hair styling requires constant use of her hands, she doesn’t use her phone often during the day and keeps it tucked away in her purse. So instead I asked her about her clients, noticing earlier when I came in that she looked a bit rushed while finishing up with her previous client. She said it’s not uncommon that clients come in late for their appointments, sometimes causing her to cut into her other clients’ appointments. This is especially troublesome because she needs time to consult the receptionist all the way at the front of the salon to check who her next client is and when her next appointment starts. Although there is a smart phone application that could help her with this, the fact that her hands are always full would prove a smart watch to be particularly helpful in this situation.

Outside of work, the interviewee enjoys biking and tennis for leisure. She mentioned that it would be nice to have a watch that can track your movements and use that information to tell you how many calories you’ve burned rather than having to input your activities in a mobile phone application manually.

Subject #2: The Pharmacist

My second interviewee was a pharmacist who has been working at Walgreens for 26 years. Her most recent mobile phone experience was when she was late to work and needed tell her coworker via text on her way to work. She keeps her phone in her purse in the passenger seat of her car (she drives herself to Berkeley from Alameda, where she resides) and had to reach over, unzip her purse, retrieve her phone, and text her coworker. Luckily, she did this all in heavy traffic (“bumper-to-bumper” as she described it), although this is still pretty dangerous (and illegal). When I asked her to imagine contacting her coworker through a wrist-worn interface, her first reaction was, “No way! I can’t see shit,” referring to her inability to read small text. When I suggested that texts could be read out loud by the watch, she remarked that her hearing is so poor that she wears hearings aids.

When I asked her why she was late to work, she said that she had been busy cooking that morning for her family (husband and two kids). She claimed she already knew she was going to be late to work, but she needed to make sure that her family had something to eat for dinner. I asked her if it was absolutely necessary that she cook their meal, to which she responded a) it’s expensive to eat out and b) her kids and husband are picky and don’t like eating leftover meals, and c) they are too lazy to learn how to cook.

Right as the pharmacist was about to dismiss the practicality of a smart watch altogether, she soon came up with her own idea for a smart watch application: “It’d be nice to have a watch that gave me a buzz or a shock to remind me that my lunch break is over so that I don’t have to keep looking at my phone.”

Brainstorm Ideas

1. An event reminder that gives you a buzz whenever you have an event scheduled and displays details of event on watch face
   
2. An app that records information about a certain routine (e.g. a haircut & blowout, morning routine & commute, etc.) using either GPS coordinates or motion sensors and can either encourage you to pick up the pace or take your time in order to stay on time
   
3. A time managing app that automatically sets your clock a certain time earlier based on your activity and the importance of a schedule event
   
4. A texting application that buzzes you when you receive a text, can read your texts to you, and can send texts using voice input
   
5. An app that can send and receive short voice messages instead of texts
   
6. An app that keeps track of and displays useful information about clients (like if they’re often late to appointments or personal details that are important to know in order to make small talk/keep strong client relationships)
   
7. An app that alerts of you bad traffic conditions for routes that you might take
   
8. A personal trainer app that can calculate how many calories you’ve burned based on your movements
   
9. An app that sends automated messages (e.g. “I’m running late!”) to another person who you’ve scheduled an event with based on your GPS coordinates and the event location and can calculate an approximate arrival time
   
10. An app that can scan your food and tell you if it’s still suitable to eat
    
11. A cooking assistant app that reads out step-by-step recipe instructions that are easy to understand by people who have no cooking experience
    
12. An app that can scan food items and tell you what meals you can make based on what ingredients you have
    

Prototype

I chose to prototype the app that transmits voice messages to other app users because it’s simple yet an extremely useful alternative to texting (and I would probably want something like this if I had a smart watch)!

The main screen is just an inbox of received messages. Details of only one message will show up at a time so as to not cram the small screen with text. Users can take the following actions:

• Swipe up to view previous message, swipe down to view next message
• Say "Play message" to play the currently displayed message
• Say "stop" to end message playback
• Say "Delete message" to delete currently displayed message
• Say "Reply" to send new message to the sender of the currently displayed message or "Message [name]" to send a new message to a specific contact
  
  • Flip wrist outward to begin recording
  • Speak into watch to record message
  • Flip wrist outward again to stop recording & send message

• Say "Add new contact" to add new contact, then hold the watch right next to another watch to add that person as a new contact

Testing

I had my friend Husna test out my prototype. While her hands were free, she was able to navigate through her messages without a problem, although she commented that the information displayed for each message is a bit overwhelming and wished there was less text.

She decided to play the message received from Bobby. Midway through Bobby’s voice message asking her to dinner, Husna said “Delete message.” However, my app required her to have the message end first (either by saying “Stop” or letting it play all the way through) before allowing her to delete the message.

Next, Husna decided to message Bobby back, this time carrying her jacket and laptop in one arm (since she was on the go). She gave the voice command “Message Bobby” and quickly flipped her wrist outward, immediately delivering her break-up speech to Bobby without waiting for the watch to display “Messaging Bobby. Flip to begin recording message.” I had to interrupt her for a second so I could change the post-it note, to which she replied that that message was probably unnecessary if the user has already used the app before. I took note and let her proceed sending her break-up voice message to Bobby. She was able to end the message with the outward flip movement pretty quickly, so it seemed that it was easy for her to familiarize herself with the gesture.

After her test-run with the watch, Husna gave me a little more feedback in her experience. She noted that once she’s recorded a voice message to send, she doesn’t have the option to delete and re-record it. She also noticed that when playing someone’s message, she can’t skip around in the audio recording and has no choice but to start from the beginning of the message. She also wished for an option that would convert speech to text so that she could read the messages instead of playing them out loud when she wanted to.

Overall, the test-run went smoothly, and Husna was able to successfully break up with Bobby using my voice messaging app with only just a few minor confusions.

Insights:

1. Less is more. Less intermediary screens is better so that a task can be performed more quickly, and less information about the message is less overwhelming.

2. Give the user a little bit more control. You don’t want the user to stop using the app because it was too easy for her to send a message that she would end up regretting!