INTERVIEWS
First Interview:
The first person I interviewed was a 31-year-old sells employee at Rasputin Music on Telegraph and musician by night. I started the conversation asking him what he liked about his phone and later smoothly asked him what he wished was different. He started with how he liked smartphones these days and helping connect to the entire world, he can check the scores, bus arrival times and practically anything. He highlighted the fact that he specially loves “Google Now” and that he was amazed by how it reminds him where he parked his car. When I asked him what he wanted different from the phone, he started with talking about non-smartphones, which held charges for a week. He says he is tired of remembering to charge his phones and if he forgets he gets disconnected with the world that he got into habit with. He says that his smart phones sometimes gets really hot when he talks for a while and thus uses his Bluetooth headphones. His biggest concern was taking this smart phone out from his pocket, he told me about how hard it is to take out a 5 inch phone from a skinny jeans pocket and that sometimes even though his phone vibrates for notification he leaves it in the pocket as it was too much of a hassle.
Second Interview:
The person I interviewed next was right across from Rasputin Music, the famous ice-cream sandwich place in Berkeley, “ Cream “. I interviewed two helpful ladies who were willing to give out a lot of information. I asked each of them the same set of questions I asked earlier. Erica ( the Caucasian lady on the left ) said that she did not have problems with her iPhone as it replaced a lot of things from her room such as a computer ( it was kind of surprising to me ) , alarms and more. She wished the iPhones had multiple desktops like apple computers. She also wanted the iPhone to wake her up easily and by not disturbing her roommates. But for the most part she was not able to give me much constructive feedback about what she did not like about the smart phones that is why I interviewed her co-worker as well.
Third Interview:
The third person I interviewed was at the same store and a coworker of Erica. Gabriella ( the one on the right ) just hates smartphones. The new android smartphone she showed me was her forth phone this year. She shattered the screen for the last three phones and lost the forth one. She complains that is more expensive to replace the screen then buying another “MetroPCS” phone. She wants phones to be attached to her body so that it does not drop or gets lost something like her earphones. Other problems she explained were how she has to charge every “ 2 seconds”. She also travels from Hayward everyday and she takes the public transport and she is tired of her phone blacking out ( for energy saving ) and taking out of her purse. She gave me a lot to think about and especially the fact the negative aspects of cell phone.
What I learned from them:
1. The device has to be connected to the entire world and must have wireless connectivity
2. A lot of people require access to their social networks and emails instantly.
3. Has to hold charge for a long period of time and one should not have to worry about charging everyday
4. The device cannot get too hot so that you cannot use it
5. Has to be portable so we can fit it anywhere
6. The interface has to offer different screens for optimizing multitasking
7. There should be a easier way to wake up ( although personally I prefer phones as alarm clocks)
8. It has to be durable and sturdy enough so that it does not break easily
9. A functionality like Find My Phone if you lose your phone
10. No blacking out of screen. The screen has to be very energy efficient
11. Live update of information ( in this case information about public transportation)
Brainstorming ideas:
1. Alarm Clock: an app that will ring and vibrate as long as you don’t select two numbers ( your passcode )from the list. It will first vibrate then it will ring and then after 5 minutes it will just keep on ringing and vibrating.
2. Notification: an app that just notifies everything around you, facebook notification and everything you care about
3. Checkin: an app that would let you checkin at any food place using nfc or low powered Bluetooth and process our demands faster
4. GPS : an app with maps and a navigation tool that will allow voice navigation
5. Phone: a dail pad for the watch to call people
6. FlipNews: A news feeder that just shows the headlines on each screen and with a swipe it will take you the next news
7. Calender: an app that shows where to be using our daily schedule ( kind of like google calendar but better!)
8. Scores: an app that gives you live updates of scores of games
9. Happening: an app that is like “Google Now” tells you how far you are from your house and work. How are stocks doing and where you parked your car. Basically everything you care about including live traffic updates and more.
10. Music App: an app that syncs music from your google music play and plays them using Bluetooth.
11. SyncMe: an app that syncs other apps and notification from out phone and alerts you every time you are 15 feet away from your phone or helps in locating your phone.
12. TripsAdvisor: an app that directs you to a station and plans your entire trip for you. Like which side of the street to stand and what time to be there
13. Control: Helps adjust the air conditioner, lock doors, turn on/off sprinklers and more
14. RewardMe: Earn points everything you buy something from a store using a QR code to record the rewards.
15. Charger : a solar panel on the watch that charges the battery to charge your phone.
16. WatchYo: ping and chat to people using pre selected text and selections
17. PhoneMode: Change phone to silent and airplane mode.
Prototype##
Prototype choice # 9 : Happening
I decided to choose “happening” which is an app that is more like Google Now with integration of email, music and Facebook messaging. I made the watch prototype using cardboard, tape and sticky notes. The app consists of 5 activities, which are described below:
#HomeScreen:
This is the home screen, where you can search and has five main buttons ( large enough that fat fingers will not be a problem). The first is google voice search, the second is Facebook messaging, the third is an email client , the forth is a music player and last and perhaps the most important the button ALL that is like a news feed of activities. The home screen also show times, weather report and connectivity with phone and wireless networks. Also all the sections will toggle with the number of unread messages.
Voice#:
This is the Google search voice. Practically you can search anything and it will give you a response. The best part is that it integrates android systems to it, meaning that you can set alarms or reminder just by talking to it. For instance to set up an alarm you can just say, “ Set an alarm for 7:50am” and it will set up an alarm for you.
Facebook# Messaging#
This screen is for Facebook messaging. A lot of people use Facebook messages then regular sms. Facebook now also gives you the option to call someone. You can easily stay connected with your friends using Facebook messaging from the watch and there is no typing just voice recognition.
eMail#
This screen is for an email client. Although it is very self-explanatory, you can add multiple emails and sync them with all devices.
#Music
In the music section you can search music using the voice command and add them to your favorite playlist and the best part is that you don’t have to store any music you can upload them to Google play music and it can play from there, given that there is data.
#ALL
This is perhaps the most important screen. All basically shows you all relevant data for you. Your weather, time it will take to get to wok, where you parked your car, how your stocks are doing, what movies are playing, when the next bus leaves and basically it is customizable to the data that you think is relevant.
Prototype Testing With Users and Insights:
I tested it couple of users and asked them what they thought about it and what they want to change:
The first user said that she does not see any point of the top bar for search, as there is already a voice search. She said that it would be nice if the Facebook messenger would also be used as a sms tool instead of using the Google voice search to call and sms. She also thinks that getting notification for email might be more useful then trying to read the emails in the small screen.
The second user had very similar insight but he wanted a digital clock when the watch was inactive. He thought it would be nice if there were 3.5mm audio port so that it did not loose much energy using Bluetooth which he does not want to charge. It seemed as he really liked the Google voice command to do everything. He added that apps like yelp are not needed as long as Google is there.
More Feedback and Insights:
1. Both the test user agreed that the application is easy to use and is very intuitive
2. Some of the screens clouds the entire user experience.
3. One of the important things to keep in mind is that to make the ui/ux for such small devices very simple and clean
4. Taking out extra or unwanted features as there is such a small space to work with.
5. Watch would be probably better with only the Google search, notification and the All page, because a lot of people may never use Facebook chat using voice recognition as chats are often private and you don’t want people to know what your are talking about.
I am pretty excited to get more feedback and at some point develop this. Feel free to email me at yousufimy@gmail.com
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