Interviews:
Interviewee 1: Male restaurant owner in his mid-60's, married
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My first interviewee was a man who owns a local restaurant in Berkeley. We started chatting about smart phones, how he specifically uses his, and instances where he wishes he could use it but can't. He mentioned that for him, the biggest issue at his restaurant was that he didn't want to use any touch screens while his hands were dirty, so he has to wash his hands to use his cash register, which is annoying to do and wastes water.
This man is constantly on the move in his eatery, whether it is showing people to their tables, ringing them up at the cash register, or even helping to cook the food, and has to wash his hands every time he goes back and forth, specifically to the cash register. His restaurant uses a Square register because it is convenient and quick for his customers, but he likes to have a password on the register because he's not always standing in front of it. Therefore, he washes his hands every time he wants to sign in after cooking, which can be between 2-6 times every 15 minutes. When I asked him how a smart watch might fix this problem, he immediately responded that hands-free authentication to his register would be extremely helpful to him.
When I pressed him to see if there were any other times where he wanted to use his phone but couldn't, he admitted that, while he loved the applications on his smart phone, he didn't use it that much or even carry it around with him often because he likes to wear a certain type of athletic shorts that don't have pockets. While he didn't really feel the need to constantly be looking at his phone throughout the day, he felt strongly that he would want to know if he was getting a phone call from someone very close to him (ie his wife, daughter, parents, etc.) in case there was an emergency and would like to be able to see this on his watch as well.
Main Takeaways:
- The interviewee thought it would be most useful for the smart watch to be a complement to his current technology, not to use it exclusively
- He didn't intend to use the smart watch on its own. Instead, he saw it more as a technology to consistently be running in the "background" that would make his interactions with his phone, register, etc
Interviewee 2: 24 year old male software engineer (Cal '12)
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My second interviewee was a mid-20's male who had just graduated from college and currently works in San Francisco at a startup. We started chatting about his hobbies and he mentioned that one of he likes to work out. I asked him if he ever needed to use his phone in the gym and he immediately responded with a big sigh.
It turns out that he uses his phone every time he goes to the gym for two main purposes: to record his workouts and to listen to music. However, he was very passionate when describing the problems he has using his phone at the gym. He usually carries it in his pocket because he feels that the arm-band phone holders are "too restricting", and doesn't like that his phone is relatively heavy compared to his lightweight athletic shorts, which tend to sag down from his waist under its weight. This problem is exacerbated when he is doing full body cardio workouts, which require a lot of running and jumping. It usually gets so bad that he has to take his phone out of his pocket when he does these workouts, leaving him without any music to listen to.
Additionally, he likes to keep track of his progress during his workouts, but doesn't currently have a way to do so besides counting manually. This can be difficult because most of his weight lifting exercises (especially when he is lifting particularly heavy weights) require a lot of mental focus, and constantly counting all of the components of his workout can be distracting.
Main Takeaways:
- It would be helpful for the smart watch to keep track of things automatically so that the user could focus on more important tasks
- The problem, in the weight lifting case, with the user's smart phone was not his inability to access his phone during his workout. Rather, it was that the actual physical structure of the phone was the inhibitor
Brainstorm
Finding your parking - an app that would help you find your car in a crowded parking lot, especially in big underground garages with no cell phone service or wifi.
Baby monitor - allow parents to monitor their sleeping children on the go and get immediately notified if there is a problem when their phone is on silent
Smart watch as a key - part of a two step authentication process to get into private areas
Weight lifting analytics - Keep track of how much weight you are moving, the velocity that you're moving it, and the number of reps you take
Sleep monitoring - track your sleep cycles and habits based on your motion during sleep to wake you up at the optimal time if your sleep cycle
Morse code using light - light up the entire screen when it is tapped on so someone could signal for help if they were in a disaster and it was dark outside
Alerts when driving - have the watch vibrate to alert a driver is they are in potential danger
- Gesture control - gesture control for anything from video games to powerpoint slides
- Smartphone unlocker - unlocks a paired smart phone when it detects that a user takes it out of their pocket
- Guitar recorder - records when a user plays guitar based on their strumming patterns
- GPS tracking - turn by turn directions directly on your wrist
- Health analytics - track your pulse, heart beat, and temperature and alert you if any of them get to an unhealthy level
Favorite Idea - Weight lifting analytics
I chose to focus on the weight lifting app because health and technology is a growing trend today and has a extremely big market with a wide age range and a variety of different use cases... everyone can use it!
The flow of this app was designed to be simple and quick. User open the app and can immediately choose which type of exercise they want to do. Then, all the user has to do it click "Start" so that the watch knows that the user is starting an exercise. The reason for the "start" button is that a user's hands are constantly moving, and we would not want the app to mistakingly think that someone one exercising when they actually weren't. The cardio portion of the app uses the GPS location of the user to understand the distance that they have run and will know when the user is moving up and down to count things like jumping jacks, crunches, and push ups.
To test the app, I had users where it and pretend to navigate through the flow of the app, start an exercise, actually do the exercise, and then look at what was recorded on the app.
Feedback
- Mobility: Loved that the user didn't have to carry his phone around with him in the gym - thought it would lead to quicker workouts because he wouldn't constantly be checking social media, text messages, etc
- UI/UX Improvements: both testers wanted to put together custom workouts/exercises into the app because sometimes they do workouts that aren't typical.
- Liked how there were only 2-3 taps to get the the starting screen
- Although I described how a music player would work on the app, I focused specifically on the weight lifting component. However, my testers were not completely convinced that they could comfortably listen to music on the watch, and therefore, would need their smart phone
Takeaways
My main takeaway from the exercise was that there is definitely a market for an app similar to what I prototyped. For people who are engaging in an active activity, a smart phone can be big, heavy, and will slow them down. The watch form factor is lightweight and the fact that it can track the movement of your arms and body is ideal for performance measurements in athletics.
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