I happened to be walking by Wheeler when the attendees of the Bridge 2014 Conference (High Tech Entrepreneurship in Iran) were breaking for lunch. I took this chance to interview some knowledgable people.
Fei is an application engineer. He provides a technical approach to the realistic offerings of a smartwatch. He readily commutes to work and spends a lot of time on the road. When Fei drives, he often gets pinged via text or email, but cannot reach into his pocket to check the urgency of the situation. If he had a wristwatch application that could display the sender of a message, he would be able to glance quickly at the message preview and decide on what action to take such as dictating a custom reply or issuing a default acknowledgement of the receipt. However, Fei does not actually want to interact through touch with said usage because it would detract from his driving. Instead, the message would alert him with a buzz or beep and would dismiss itself in a predetermined amount of time.
Another feature that Fei would like to see is if there are traffic incidents that may divert him from his typical route. For instance, if he is on the freeway headed to work and there has just been a large accident 5 miles ahead, he hopes that the watch would be able to alert him of such and give him the option to ask for another, less congested, path to work.
Aidin is a physics graduate and tends to attend a lot of gatherings such as dinners and conferences. He understands the social stigmas against checking your phone through a dinner, but is concerned that there may be an urgent matter to which he must attend. He would like to see a sender and preview message from texts and emails. However, his main concern is that a lit up screen or a vibrate would be very distracting to him and anyone else. He thinks a small light on the watch that lights up briefly would be a good alternative and minimize annoyance to bystanders as well as himself.
Aidin also wants to reduce physical interaction with the small watch as much as possible. When he is driving, he thinks it would be very convenient to ask the watch for directions and either have it delegate the navigation to the phone or speak them aloud. This would be solution to the fact that his phone either resides in his pocket or is too far from his voice to properly detect when a keyword is said.
Random Braindump of Ideas
Running - track pace/distance, heart rate, temperature
Safety - walking home, should sense an “alarm” motion
GPS - real time traffic diversions
weather alerts - rain is coming!
meeting alerts and ETA
specials of the day at a restaurant
sleep tracker
personal QR code
quick restaurant finder
gesture-based passwords
geo-catching pokemon that you “see”
- shake hands, loads other person’s LI, bump to share files
I choose the Pokemon idea because it really capitalizes on the perpetual accessibility of a wearable and it sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
When people are just doing their daily activities, like walking to class, wouldn't it be so exciting to have a wild Pokemon appear and play with it? With the Pokewatch app, you can! This gesture- and motion-based app makes it realistic to try and lure a Pokemon into your care. When a Pokemon appears, your watch will vibrate and it will pop up onto the screen. You can find out basic stats by swiping to the left or right. If you're busy, you can swipe up to dismiss immediately, or it will self-dismiss in 30 seconds. If you decide to engage with the Pokemon, just double tap the screen and you can initiate the encounter. Based on the happiness scale, using a correct timing of bait and throwing a Pokeball will catch you a new Pokefriend. However, if you wait too long or throw a ball at it too soon, he will run away. At any time, you can also leave the Pokemon by shaking the watch as if running away.
I first presented my prototype to my roommate, Nitika. She really enjoys playing Pokemon. She even used an emulator on her iPhone so she could explore the Pokeworld.Nitika enjoys that the game is straightforward enough that you don’t have to deal with battling and thinking about Pokemon weaknesses (although that could be another iteration). Her only concern is with the physical motions required to throw a Pokeball. She doesn’t want other people to know she’s playing Pokemon though and expects an alternative to the actual gestures. She suggests more gesture inputs via the watch screen so she can play discretely.
Atsu is slightly more neutral toward Pokemon than Nitika, but he also enjoys the imaginary creatures. thinks the initial UI is very instinctive. He thinks the app is too minimal to be engaging and thinks it’s particularly important that there be a social aspect added to the app. Perhaps users could trade Pokemon or see other Pokemasters in the vicinity. He would be much more likely to use this app if his friends were on it as well. He enjoys the idea of having some virtual friends to keep him company on the late-night lonely walks back home from Soda.
After interviewing two representatives from separate demographics, I realized that there are so many out-of-the-box ideas (the box being my own mind). After interviewing these two, I decided that the the features the app currently provides are not enough.
For Nitika, it makes total sense that it would be awkward for someone to be waving their arm obnoxiously while on a casual stroll. I wouldn't want the app's users to feel socially uncomfortable. The addition of gestures would allow the closet Pokemasters to play to their heart's desire, while still maintaining their social standing.
Atsu's request is also very feasible and would make the watch more engaging for the user and also add more value. In addition to personal entertainment, it could spark social connections. From there, one could even add some Tinder elements!
Without having interviewed other people, I would be missing out on so many perspectives and ideas to make this app more usable.
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