Part 1
Interview A (25-year old marketing manager in Downtown Los Angeles, CA):
This man provided extremely useful insight into how a smartwatch could make his life easier. Ask expected from someone having an occupation such as this one, ease of use is an extremely important aspect of a successful handheld device or wearable computer. He made it clear that tasks such as reading an email and texting a friend can quickly accumulate and become a nuisance after happening frequently. A typical scenario requires him to take out his phone from his pocket, unlock it, navigate to the special folder he has made for email or texting applications, and then finally open up the application in question. I asked him to imagine performing this exact same task with a smartwatch. Luckily, he was already familiar with what a wrist worn interface touchscreen looks like, so I did not need to illustrate the device’s design for him. Immediately after asking him this question, he stated that a simple interface on his watch could notify him of the person who is contacting him through email, text, and phone, like a modern pager. This interface would simplify his life because it would reduce the amount of times he needs to take his phone out on a given day to check if the message he is getting is important or not. He would now have the power to know who is reaching him, and so, he would take out his phone if he feels the necessity to respond. This man’s understanding of a smartwatch’s purpose is that it should act as a supplement to his smartphone.
Interview B (60-year old police officer from the San Jose Police Department):
While he’s in the field, he would like to access emails from the department without having to actually pull out his phone. Clearly, occupying one of his hands can create a safety hazard for a police officer in the case of an emergency. A typical scenario requires him to unlatch the phone from the holster on his belt, reach for the phone, take the phone out, unlock it with a passcode, and then finally go to the email application. After doing this, he said that he has to worry about not dropping the phone on the ground while he puts the phone back into the holster. According to him, this process is a nuisance for many police officers. Undoubtedly, a smartwatch would be able to lessen this hassle by a large margin.
Commonalities:
Although both interviewees were from very different walks of life, both seemed to place a great deal of importance on communication with others. They both wanted their phones to be able to more efficiently send texts and emails to people of their choice. In addition, they both were interested in finding ways to get reminders for certain tasks that they have throughout the day. The biggest problem in both cases was that the actual removal of the smartphone from its previous location took too much time for their busy lives. Further analysis of this problem shows that a smartwatch would reduce the time it takes for them to check their emails since they would only need to look at their wrist and possibly navigate through a simple menu.
Part 2
Brainstorm:
· Exercise application that reminds you what exercises you should do next during your workout
· An application that allows you to set alarms for your phone from your smartwatch
· An application that allows you to sync wireless headphones to both your watch and your phone, and then allows you to change songs from the watch. (Useful during activities like running)
· A simple texting application that allows you to send texts to anyone from your contact list
· A simplified email application that allows you to send quick responses to people of your choice. You can make a list of predetermined text responses that you can send straight from your watch. If you need to add something more, then pull out your phone.
· The police officer interview inspired me to create an application that reminds police officers of the Miranda warnings if they need to reference them quickly.
· An application that tells you the schedules of meetings you have throughout the day. Basically, a reminder application with notifications.
· Request an Uber from your smartwatch
· Application that gives you the weather forecast for today and tomorrow
· Payment application that allows you to tap your credit card on the watch for a payment. Like Blink.
· A voice recording application to record your singing, record lectures, etc.
· An emergency application for police officers when they are working. Tapping the screen calls for backup.
· Stock market application which shows where your stocks are at for the day.
· For a watch with a front facing camera, a simple mirror application would be extremely useful.
Chosen Idea:
The reminder application would be a helpful application for both of the people I interviewed. In everyone’s daily lives, things often are missed. This application would try to prevent that from occurring with notifications.
Prototype:
The aim of the application is to be as simple as possible, but to also effectively remind people of something they need to do. For something as small as a watch, a full blown user interface is completely unnecessary. Users will be able to set a different color for some task that needs to be done. By linking to the calendar on their phones, the application just displays a certain color on the screen corresponding to the task that needs to be done. For someone living such a busy life, a trigger is all that is usually needed to remind someone of something. If a user associates a color with a certain task, every time they see their watch’s screen turn that color at a given time, they’ll know what to do.
With the calendar application on the phone, all the user needs to do is specify the type of task from the smartwatch and then has to link the type with an event from the calendar. The time settings will then get imported from the calendar, and the notification will go off accordingly. If the user does not have a calendar on his/her phone to link with, the application also allows you to create an event from the smartwatch itself. This just involves two added steps of setting the time and name for the event. After the final step of adding the event, the user is brought back to the main menu.
The actual hardware portion of my prototype involves a sample watch that is cut out of white cardboard. I attached post-it notes to the screen in order to show users the different screens that my application would have. The watch itself has a touch interface on the band that basically allows the user to interact with the smartwatch without touching the screen for simple tasks. The touchpad is divided into 4 quadrants. If there is a screen on the watch with two buttons for example, the top two quadrants would connect to the top button and the bottom two quadrants would be a response for the bottom button. For more complicated tasks, like choosing the date on a calendar or selecting a time, users would still be able to use the watch’s screen as a touch interface.
Feedback from Prototype:
Feedback received through testing prototypes will probably prove to be invaluable to anyone developing an application for the smartwatch.
First User: This user was a 21-year-old woman from Berkeley. I met her at Cafe Milano and asked her to test my prototype after introducing myself. Her main feedback was that flow of the application is very good, but the number of screens involved should be cut down. Her statements were just a testament to the fact that people love simplicity. She said she wanted an application that would help her without adding any stress to her day. In other words, the user interface should be refined to create a flawless experience for the user.
Second User: I was fortunate enough to test my prototype with one of my interviewees. I was in Los Angeles for the past weekend, and I ran into the 25-year-old marketing manager almost three times since he lives in the same building that I was staying in for the weekend. I showed him my prototype, and he said the look of the watch was amazing. In terms of the application, he liked the simplicity, but he also said the same thing that the 21-year-old woman said involving the number of screens. Nobody wants to look at multiple screens on a watch, since that can be tedious. While “using” the application, he also felt like the application could use a few more features. He said that having sounds instead of just visuals would be best for notifying the user. He liked the idea of the touch screen interface, but he wasn’t completely sure if it work or not.
Insights:
· Although the prototyping was for the application itself, feedback from my user also gave me insight for if I were to ever create a smartwatch myself. Multiple colors or maybe even interchangeable straps would be a plus to the product.
· The application could use a system that allows for a reminder of the event before it actually happens. Indeed, it would be useless to find out you have a meeting in San Jose at 6 pm, when you receive the message at 6 and are in Berkeley. For this reason, people should be able to simply associate a timed reminder according to the type of task. For example, let’s say “business meetings” for my first interviewee have been set to the color red. He simply needs to set the reminder time for “business meetings” and from then on the screen will go turn red a certain time before that specific event.
· Add sound and vibrate as well as color. Users stated that visuals alone are not enough for a reminder, so these two added features should really alert them.
· The problem of having too many screens can be solved by combining the date and time screens into one and the color and task screens into one. The result of this would be half of the number of screens in the application while still achieving the same effect.
· The touchscreen on the wristband of the watch should not have any problems if it is correctly synchronized with the software. For example, an app with only two buttons would use the two button layout for the watch. Undoubtedly, this process would be automated after software is created for this specific purpose.
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