The DériveWatch application is based off of the idea of dérive, taking an unplanned journey through a landscape. The idea is that you sort of "drift" through a city in an unplanned way, but you eventually make it to your destination. This application is meant to create a similar experience.
The application is meant to allow users, along with any friends they invite, to drift to a specified location. Most of the interaction occurs on the smart phone, but some does involve using a linked smart watch. The smart phone is mainly used for setting preferences and selecting destinations. The smart watch portion is used for getting directions and receiving notifications from other users. The smart watch portion also assists in creating the drifting experience. It gives out various types of directions to allow the user to explore the route on the way to their destination. This experience is enhanced, by giving the user a route to the destination, that is not necessarily the most direct or quickest route. This allows them to explore new things and uses their preferences to determine the route that is best for them.
There are two types of users, the curious user and the main user. Both are described below.
The Main User
The first screen above is the home screen. From this screen the users can manage their settings. They can go to Manage Friends, to add or remove their friends. Manage watch allows them to manage their watch settings, for things like installing the application on the watch etc. The Preferences menu allows the user to define their route settings. This is where they can set things like terrain and difficulty of a route. I will discuss the Curious Mode button more below, so that just leaves the Drift menu item.
Clicking on the drift menu item will advance the user to the second screen above. This is where they can either search for a certain location to 'drift' to, they can explore nearby locations, or they can look for a specific category of destinations. Any of these options will take the user to the next screen where they have a selection of locations and a map view to narrow down or widen the search area. Once the user selects a destination they will move on to screen 4 above. This is where they are able to invite any of their friends to join them on their adventure. Users are able to invite no friends, or as many friends as they would like to join them. The friends that show up in this list to be invited are friends who have Curious Mode turned on and are not currently in an adventure of their own.
Once the user has selected their friends(if any) to invite, they move to the final screen above. This is where they can select their(personal) transportation preferences. Using this along with the location and preferences of other invited friends, the application will calculate the earliest time of arrival. At this point the user can increase the time, if they would prefer to allow for more time to wander around, but they are unable to make the Estimated Time of Arrival, any earlier than the earliest time calculated by the phone. Once they have set their time and mode of transportation, they click complete and their adventure begins. If they have invited friends, their friends watches will be notified that they have been invited, otherwise their adventure will begin with directions on their watch.
The user will be notified(as in screen two in the photos below) if their friends accept or reject their request. If rejected, the user is asked if they would like to continue anyways. On acceptance, the directions to the location will begin.
In the directions(Screens 3 and 4 below), the time till arrival is indicated at the bottom of the watch screen. The color will change from green to yellow to red, depending on how much time the user has left to make it to their destination. This makes it so the user is aware of when they can wander around and when they have to run to make it to their destination on time.
The Curious User
The Curious user, is a user who puts themselves in curious mode, so their friends can invite them to drift with them. While a majority of the Curious Mode settings are on the smart phone, the user is also able to turn curious mode on and off from the main screen of the smart watch application. The curious mode menu on the phone allows the user to select the preferred mode of transportation. This mode is used in calculating the arrival time from the main users drift invitation.
When the curious user is invited to drift(screen 5 below) they will get a watch notification, which they can accept or reject. On acceptance, the watch navigation will begin and the user will no longer show up in their friends curious lists until their adventure has completed. Note that the curious user has no idea where their destination is.
Here is a brief video overview of the interaction:
Prototypes were made with Framer.js.
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