My first interview was with a 26 year old man who works as a lawyer. He uses his phone regularly throughout the day and considers it to be vital to his everyday life. His culture is also important to him and he enjoys spending his free time cooking authentic Spanish cuisine.
I began by asking him about a recent time where he had wanted to access his phone and it wasn't readily available. He immediately responded that he had been cooking the previous night and had a recipe open on his phone. He hadn't wanted to refer to it, however the phone had gone to sleep and his hands were dirty from mixing. Washing his hands seemed silly since they would immediately get dirty again, however he didn't want to get his phone dirty either. I then asked him where he usually keeps his phone, and he told me that during the day it is generally in his pocket, but that while cooking he tries to keep it out of the way somewhere on the counter. This can be annoying since it either gets in the way or he has to walk over to it.
I brought up the idea of a wrist interface like a smart watch and asked how it could be used to address this problem. He expressed that it would be helpful to have an always on display which could have the steps in the recipe on it. This way he could refer to it easily at anytime. He also expressed the need for some sort of hands-free control so that the device wouldn't get dirty.
After conducting this interview, I decided it would be a good idea to focus on home cooks who will often be using new recipes since there seems to be real improvements that smart watches can bring to this application. I tried to find another interviewee who liked to cook at home.
My second interview was then with a 25 year old man who is currently unemployed but seeking work in finance. He doesn't use his phone as often and doesn't consider it to be vital to his lifestyle, but he does use it everyday.
I started by asking him about a recent time where his phone wasn't readily accessible, and he brought up the fact that phones were not allowed in meetings at a previous job of his since they were being used for non-business purposes. During these meetings, he would feel his phone vibrate in his pocket and know he had a message, but he had no idea if it was important or not since he couldn't check it. I brought up the wrist interface, to which he responded that if it was restricted so that companies would still allow them in meetings, and you could quickly see if the message was important or not it would be very helpful.
I mentioned cooking at home since it was a good topic from my first interview, and he informed me that he cooks at home often and uses his laptop for recipes. He says it is easy to use since the screen tends to stay on and can usually hold then entire recipe. It can however be clunky and get in the way due to a lack of counter space. He often needs to keep it elsewhere and walk over to read the recipe. I asked about the wrist interface for this application, and he felt it would be very helpful if it was always available to read. He also emphasized that he would need it to have some sort of way to search for recipes since he doesn't only store recipes on his computer, he also uses it to search for them. Unfortunately this interview subject did not want his photo taken.
After these interviews, it is clear that a smart watch could help with using recipes. Both people felt that having a screen with them at all times would be much more convenient, and a smart watch can also address the hands-free control and search functions which were mentioned.
Ideas:
1. Translator - listens to speech and displays it translated to another language on screen
2. Quick voice search for facts - ability to search for quick facts by voice command
3. Email - access short email previews
4. Fitness tracker - track fitness stats like distance, steps, calories etc.
5. Navigation - driving or walking navigation from point A to point B
6. Nearby restaurants and reviews - provides a list of nearby well-reviewed restaurants
7. Music player - plays music from a library or the cloud to wireless headphoens
8. Picture viewer - view and share photos easily with those around you
9. News headlines - a quick summary of major headlines
10. Stock ticker - shows the performance of your preferred stocks
11. Weather - displays the current weather, as well as a simple forecast
12. Recipe Application - allows you to search for recipes, and then helps you cook them step by step
13. Transcriber for the deaf - listens to speech and displays it as text on the screen
14. Calendar - view you calendar for the day
15. Phone locator - press a button to either make your phone ring or to give you the phones location by gps
16. Smart home controller - controls to allow you to turn on and off lights, change temperature, etc.
17. TV remote - change the channel and volume from your watch
Chosen Idea:
I have chosen the recipe application as my favorite idea since it fits with the feedback from my interviews and I feel that it can accomplish the task better than a smart phone due to dirty hands, convenience, and the fact that voice controls won't be embarrassing since it will be used in your own home. I feel that my other ideas are mostly either already available, or not significant improvement over a smart phone counterpart.
Prototype:
The following is my prototype which I made with cardboard, sharpies, paper, and tape. At first, you have two options, either view a list of previous recipes or search for a new one via two touch buttons. The search will bring you to a voice search screen where you say your search terms. You then go to a list of either the past recipes or the ones which match your search. You can press any recipe to select it and start cooking. Steps are then displayed one at a time and the user can say "next" to move on to the next step. Once the recipe is finished, a screen is displayed where the user can rate the recipe to help the search engine and choose whether or not to save the recipe in recent recipes via touch command.
Testing:
I went out and tested this prototype with two users. The first said they do cook occasionally at home and felt a recipe app would be helpful. They liked that the design was simple, but had troubles because of this on the first screen. They weren't sure what the two buttons meant. They guess correctly that the one was a list and the other was a search, but weren't sure if it was searching just your recipes, or some database. They like the voice commands, and felt that they were easy to understand from the screens. Once on the list of recipes, they expressed some disappointment in the information provided. They wanted to be able to check things like the approximate time or the ingredients before choosing one.
The second person cooks a lot, and already has a recipe app on their phone. They expressed the same basic concerns as the first person in terms of understanding the buttons, but then went on to offer some additional functionality they would like to see. They wanted some sort of shopping list mode for a recipe where it could just display ingredients for easy purchasing in the store, and also wanted timers you could set on the individual steps so the watch would then let you know when it had been mixed long enough or finished cooking.
Insights:
The testing was very helpful and provided two different types of insights. First, the basic user interface needs improvement so that they could really understand what they were doing. This is mostly important on the home screen. The minimal approach is important since the screen is small, but they still need the information to be able to control the application easily. I think some sort of instruction screen, or small text to explain buttons could be helpful here. Second, they suggest some important features I should add. I would modify the recipe list screen so that you can select a recipe and then go to a list of ingredients before choosing to start cooking. I would also add a voice command to start the timer on steps which need to be timed.
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