Part 1: Observation and Interview
The first interviewee was a female grocery shopper at Safeway in her 20s. When asked about the last time she didn't have her phone readily available, she mentioned that she had to view a text message while carrying groceries. Essentially, she had to place her grocery bags down, rummage through her purse until she found her phone to view the message. The interviewee also went on to describe how at times she felt "phantom phone vibrations" and how she wasn't sure whether her smartphone was receiving a message or not. She would then have to rummage through her purse to find her phone to make sure she actually did receive some sort of call or message. When asked about viewing a notification on a smaller wrist interface, the interviewee mentioned just tapping on an onscreen button with her other hand to view the message on the interface. She also mentioned how with a wrist based interface vibrations are more noticeable so it alleviate her problem of trying to find her smartphone when she was unsure whether she received a message or not.
The second person I interviewed was a male grocery shopper at Safeway in his 60s. When asked about the last time he didn't have his phone readily available, the interviewee mentioned receiving a call while wheeling his cart around the store. He had to stop the cart, unzip his check and take out his phone, which he usually places in hist left shirt pocket, and then answer the call. When asked to imagine a smiliar scenario except with a watch based interface the interviewee described tapping on an onscreen button to accept the call and then bringing his wrist up to his mouth and speaking into the interface while listening to the other person from a speaker on it. The interviewee also mentioned how if he were ever in an accident it would be troublesome to access his phone and call for help quickly enough. He imagined an icon on the wrist interface that one could tap which would immediately call for emergency services similar to the function of a device called 'life alert'. He also mentioned that it would be faster to check the time on a watch interface by clickiong on an icon then checking it on his phone.
Probably the most striking commonalities across both these interviews is that participants preferred to receive and and respond to simple notifications, such as a call or text, on a wrist based interface compared to actually taking out their smartphone.
Part 2: Idea Generation, Prototype, and Demo
1. Phone app: When a user gets a phone call the phone app fills the screen, and the watch itself vibrates. 3/4s of the screen is filled with the caller's picture. Overlayed on top of the picture is caller's name. 1/4 of the screen contains two horizontal buttons. A green button for accepting the call and a red one for declining it. When the user accepts the call the green button is replaced as the red one expands to fill its area. The user then talks into the watch and listens to the caller from a speaker on the watch.
2. SMS app: When a user gets an sms depending on the importance of the given contact the user will receive a different sequence of vibrations on their wrist. The watch itself will display the txt of the message on the whole screen. The user can swipe the message to the right, to return to the watch homescreen. The user can only respond to the message on the phone.
3. SMS app with voice to text: Similar interface as 2 but now 1/4th of the screen has a respond button while 3/4ths of the screen is the msg itself. When the user clicks on the respond button, which changes the screen to a microphone icon, they can then speak into the watch and with their speech being translated to text. The microphone icon is then replaced by a view in which 3/4's of the screen from the top is the text and the bottom 1/4 has two horizontal buttons, one in green for sending and the other in red to redo the messsage.
4. LifeAlert 2.0: The user taps on the watch face four times and they will be instantly connected with a 911 responder who they can hear and respond to using the watch's speaker and microphone. With watch constantly sending the user's pulserate and location to the responder.
5. General Notifications: Instead of having an app specific to one notification say having a separate sms and facebook app all notifications will be routed through one application. For this app when a user receives a notification, a view fills the screen where the top 1/4th screen is filled with the msg type, facebook, sms, etc. The remaining portion of the screen contains the message itself. The watch also vibrates and the band lights up with a preset color for the type of msg, blue for facebook, red for google etc. They can then swipe this view to the left to return to the home screen. They can swipe to the right to view a previous message. They can't respond to messages on the watch.
6. Watch application: The user has a choice of a standard analog or digital display. They can select which one by swiping either left or right with the left direction containing the analog and the right direction containing the digital display. When the user wants to set the time they tap three times on the watch display. A digital display will appear in the view with a selection bar flashing on the hour mark. They can then use the watch's wristband as a touch sensitive input to scroll through the list of numbers by swiping along the wristband. When finished with their selection they can then move onto the next section, (minutes, etc.), by tapping on it.
7. Maps: In the map app view the user starts at a certain perspective above their location which is represented by a blue dot. They can then zoom in or zoom out by using a touch sensitive interface on the watch band. They can swipe down along the watchband away from then to zoom out. They can swipe up along the watchband towards them to zoom in. By swiping from the top down on the screen they get a list of preset locations which they can tap to get a route to. A user can also see their current route if they have one already set on the maps app on their smartphone. Otherwise they can't set their own route aside from the preset ones on the watch maps app.
8. Task Manger: The view consists of a list of tasks the user has to complete. Next to each task is a checkbox that a user can click to mark the task as complete. When a user clicks on a task it expands to fill the screen. 3/4ths of the screen is filled with the task summary and the bottom 1/4th is a 'mark complete' button. The user can swipe right on the watch face to return to the list of tasks. The user can scroll through the list of tasks by using the wristband. Swipe down the wristband to scroll down and swipe up to scroll up.
9. Calculator: The first half of the view from the top is for the number input. The second half of the view has a first row of circular buttons which are +, -, /, x. The second row is =, c where c stands for clear. The user inputs numbers a unit's place at time using the wristband to scroll through a list of numbers that appear on the first half of the display. The user can then go onto the next place or they can click one of the operation symbols. They can then input the second number and then click = which will then display the answer on the second half of the screen.
10. Calendar: The calendar shows a list view of one's events for the current day. The user can scroll through the events by using a touch sensitive interface on the watchband. Scroll up towards the user to scroll up on the display, perform the reverse operation to scroll down. Swipe left on the display to view the next day swipe right to view the previous day.
11. Memo: The view is a lined piece of paper. The user input is driven by gesturing the outline of the word on the watch display, ocr is then used to transform the gesture into a character. Tap once on the display for a space, tap twice for a backspace. Return to the homescreen by swiping to the right.
12. Photos: The view is a list of images organized into stacks by the day they are taken on. Scroll through the list of stacks by swiping vertically up or down on the screen. Expand the stack of images by tapping on the stack. Swipe horizontally either left or right to cycle through the set of images in the stack.
Prototype
Choice: Idea 5 General Notifications
Justification: I feel the simplicity of limiting all notifications through a single highly visible interface would be beneficial for the user allowing them to have a simple mental model of interacting with all such messages.
Basic Watch:
The prototype of the watch home screen consists of a single application 'Notify' that the user can click on.
App Views:
The app views consist of the various notifications a user receives such as from SMS, Facebook, Google+, etc.
User Receives a Notification:
When a user receives a notification the watch will vibrate and the color of the wristband changes to that of the notification. For example, blue for Facebook. The view also changes to that of the notification.
Movement:
The user can swipe left or right to move through the notifications. For the most recent notification if a user swipes right they return to the home screen. For the oldest notification a user can't swipe right only left.
Prototype Test:
The prototype was tested with a college senior. After strapping the watch interface onto his wrist. I explained that he was receiving a message. I then shook the watch to indicate vibration and then changed the color of the wristband to blue. Finally I placed the facebook notification on the watch display. The user than clicked around on the message seeing if an action would occur. After this didn't work the user than tried swiping to the left. At which point I slid the facebook notification screen to the left and slid in the google notification screen. I also changed the color of the wristband to red. The user then attempted to swipe left again, but when that didn't work either he swiped right at which point I returned the facebook notification screen and changed the color of the wristband back to blue. He then swiped right again so I removed the notification to come back to the home screen as well as the blue wristband. He then tapped on the Notify app on the home screen wherein I brought back the prior notification and changed the color of the wristband back to blue.
Key Insights:
From observing the user it appeared that they initially expected some sort of interaction with the message itself judging by the way they kept clicking it. Also judging from the way the user then quickly started swiping this movement mechanism from view to view appears to be pretty intuitive. After going over the prototype the user suggested that it would be more intuitive if the user could respond to the message rather than simply viewing it. They also suggested that while the changing color of the wristband was a good indicator it could also be potentially distracting as well especially in a workplace environment.
Insights:
1. There should be some way to interact with the message. Perhaps marking it as seen or flagging it as in need of further review.
2. Allow the user further control of the app and the wristband so that they can disable such elements as the color change of the wristband.
3. While the user mentioned that swiping to go through the views was intuitive it would be easier it understand if there was some better visual cue to indicate this gesture. Perhaps a set of delayed flashing arrows on either side of the screen.
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