Group Name: The Guitar Heroes
Group Members:
- Paulina Ramos
- Alvin Yau
- Sarah Hernandez
- Daniel Kang
- Jason Won
Brainstorming
We conducted two separate brainstorming sessions that resulted in 53 ideas.
Here are the 53 ideas we came up with:
EDUCATION
“Waker Upper” - a smartwatch app that wakes you up when you’re falling asleep in class taking notes (can sense when your hand isn’t moving anymore)
“Presentation Helper” - use your smartwatch as a button to show the next slide in a slideshow presentation (can also use gestures to transition to next slide)
“Blatant Cheating” - a smartwatch app helps you cheat in school exams/tests
FITNESS & HEALTH“Choreo” - a smartwatch app detects your dance moves and instructs you how to correct your moves (like a personal choreographer)
“Do You Lift, Bro?” - a body motion analyzer for lifting weights (e.g. count # of lifts)
“Healthy Skin” - a smartwatch app that can detect how healthy your skin is as your wear your smartwatch around your bare wrist
“Basketball” - a smartwatch app that helps perfect your basketball shot (can correct your moves / angle)
“CO2” - a smartwatch air quality analyzer (can sense if there’s too much CO2 in the air and if it’s unsafe to breathe)
“Baby” - enables a smartwatch that fits around baby’s arm to monitor its health
“Shake It Off” - a smartwatch app that helps prevent carpal tunnel by reminding you to shake your wrists and do wrist exercises when you’ve been on the computer for too long
“Heart Stroke Predictor” - a smartwatch app that can predict when you’re about to have a heart stroke from your heart rate
“Bicycle Road Analyzer” - you wear your smartwatch while riding your bike and as you bike across different terrain or at different speeds, your smartwatch will play music to match the speed/terrain (e.g. going down a steep hill, the watch will play intense/fast music)
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“Calorie Intake” - a smartwatch app that detects how many calories you consume from eating certain foods to help you monitor/track your intake and reduce obesity
GAMES
“Assassins” - use your smartwatch to play Assassins against other smartwatch errors; can track # of deaths, kills, people still alive, etc.
“Gambler” - a smartwatch app that helps you win at gambling in the casino (involves some form of cheating)
“Magic Wand” - a smartwatch app paired with a plastic magic wand that detects a person’s wand movements and voice projects the corresponding Harry Potter spell name based on those movements, along with magical sound effects (e.g. “Wingadium Leviosa!”)
SOCIAL“Are You Free To Do Things?” - you toggle a button on your smartwatch that will indicate whether you’re free or not; a friend can just check your availability on their smartwatch and see that you’re free for a certain period and contact you
“Rolodex” - your smartwatch acts as a context-aware rolodex for your phone; you approach someone and their information shows up on your smartwatch (peer-to-peer)
“Tinder-esque” - an app similar to Tinder that lets you know if you’re compatible with a person you just met
UTILITY“Smart House” - use your smartwatch to control lights and other devices in your home by tapping your screen when you walk into a room
“TV Remote” - use your smartwatch to control your TV (e.g. change channels)
“Picture Trigger” - you can prop your phone up somewhere with the camera facing outwards, pose in front of the camera with your friends, then tap your smartwatch to trigger the camera and take a picture (no need for front-facing camera selfies and camera tripods)
“Find My Phone” - use your smartwatch to locate your paired smartphone when it gets lost
“Knobby” - while you’re wearing your smartwatch, you can open a door (e.g. turn a door knob) and the door will automatically unlock
“DUI Lock” - your smartwatch will lock your car and prevent you from driving if it senses that you’re under the influence; prevents you from getting a DUI
“Phone Beacon” - your smartwatch will alarm you when your smartphone gets too far away from you (can detect thefts as they happen)
“Money Tracker” - a smartwatch app that tracks how much money you spend every time you swipe a credit card or pay in cash
“Restaurant Finder” - when you’re hungry and looking for a place to eat, your smartwatch will alert you about nearby places and give you food recommendations
“NFC Payment” - allows you to pay for items just by scanning the face of your smartwatch (tap-to-pay)
“Tamagotchi” - use your smartwatch to interact with a virtual (pixelated) pet by tapping the screen to feed it, play with it, pet it, etc.
“Next Bus 2.0” - as you approach a nearby bus stop, bus arrival times for that stop will automatically appear on your smartwatch in real-time
“Recruiting App” - when you shake a recruiter’s hand, you automatically exchange contact information (e.g. email, a copy of your resume)
“Floor Plan” - a small-scale maps smartwatch app; you scan the face of your smartwatch to a physical map, the floor plan will load on your smartwatch face, then you query the smartwatch app and it will direct you somewhere (i.e. input NFC floor plan)
“2-Factor Authentication” - you’re prevented from accessing your account (e.g. Gmail) until you authenticate with your smartwatch, smartphone, and laptop (all three devices)
“Store Item Finder” - a voice-driven smartwatch app that will tell you the location of an item in a store via voice input (e.g. “Find milk in grocery store” → app tells you that the milk is in Aisle 3)
“Instant Voice Translator” - you speak into your smartwatch in another language and the watch will translate what you said to another language for the person you’re talking to
“Flashlight” - your smartwatch emits a very bright light that serves as a flashlight you can use when you’re in dark places
“Maps for Cyclists” - your smartwatch will display a map to the destination you’re headed to in a visible, hands-free manner that doesn’t require you to use your phone
“Solar Panel” - a solar-powered smartwatch whose battery charges by soaking in sunlight
“Shazaam 2.0” - a smartwatch app that takes in music as input and tells you the title/artist of the song that’s playing
“Show Me A Sign” - a smartwatch app that detects the sign language that a mute person is gesturing to communicate and translates the sign language to normal English as voice output to the able-speaking person (essentially a sign language translator)
“Crime Scene” - when a crime has happened near you, your smartwatch will alert you of where that crime happened, what happened, and that you should steer clear from it
“Page Count” - a gesture-detection smartwatch app that counts the number of pages you’ve read in a physical book by detecting when you’ve made the hand movement of turning a page (you must turn the page of a book with the same arm that you’re wearing the smartwatch on)
“Facescan” - a smartwatch app that unlocks your paired smartphone (or even your laptop) simply by scanning your face with the smartwatch screen
“Print For Me” - a smartwatch app that triggers your nearby printer to print pages using a bluetooth connection; by tapping your smartwatch screen, you can control how many pages to print or abruptly stop a printing process
MISCELLANEOUS“Body Tracker” - each smartwatch is a tracker associated with a particular person; during emergencies (e.g. earthquake), the smartwatches will track who evacuated a building and send the information to a central dispatcher
“Hologram Projector” - the flat face of the smartwatch will project a hologram (upwards)
“Color Code” - a smartwatch app that analyzes the colors of your outfit and changes the watch screen face to match or complement your outfit colors
“Surgeon Simulator” - a smartwatch app that reminds a surgeon of next procedure instructions
“Guitar Hero” - a smartwatch app that shows you sheet music you can follow along (like a tutorial); you’ll need to rotate your watch 180 degrees to see the screen while you play the guitar
“Karaoke Buddy” - when you go at a karaoke bar, you have to use their provided karaoke mic to sing; with this smartwatch app, you don’t have to hold a mic at all. you can simply pretend to hold a mic (e.g. ball your hand into a fist) while wearing your watch, and the watch will take your singing voice as input and sync it to the karaoke machine (can also detect if you’re off-pitch)
“GoPro 2.0” - a smartwatch app that connects to your GoPro camera and lets you trigger the camera in the midst of doing an extreme activity (e.g. snowboarding)
- “Song Soother” - a smartwatch app that detects your stress levels (by your heart rate and blood pressure) and plays you the appropriate song to calm you down
The Idea Selection Process
Towards the end of our second brainstorming session, our team discussed the ideas that we had come up with during our first brainstorming session. We went through the list and narrowed it down to our twelve favorite ideas:
Presentation Helper
Bicycle Road Analyzer
Maps for Cyclists
Assassins
Rolodex
Recruiting App (for network events)
Floor Plan
2-factor auth
Smart House
Knobby
Picture Trigger
Guitar Hero
Throughout the discussion, we also sketched these ideas and realized that some of them could be combined into a single idea. The combinations we made were Bicycle Road Analyzer and Maps for Cyclists, Rolodex and Recruiting App, and Smart House and Knobby (as seen below).
- Presentation Helper
Bicycle Road Analyzer + Maps for Cyclists
Assassins
Rolodex + Recruiting App (for network events)
- Floor Plan
2-factor auth
Smart House + Knobby
Picture Trigger
Guitar Hero
We then took a group vote on each application/combination of applications and narrowed down our list to our top 3 choices:
- Smart House + Knobby
- Picture Trigger
Guitar Hero
Because we had so many ideas, it was hard to narrow them down to ~10 or so ideas, let alone 2-3. Our top 3 contenders were Knobby (an automatic door opener, a useful piece of hardware in its own right but also a proof of concept for any “smart house” idea), Picture Trigger (an app interfacing with a smartphone or a GoPro, displaying the user a live view of what the camera sees and allowing the user to trigger the camera), and Guitar Hero (an app that a user would wear with the watch under their wrist, to provide useful information for people playing the guitar). However, Picture Trigger seemed a little simplistic albeit extremely useful, and Knobby seemed to lack specificity in terms of the user base.
We decided to go ahead and go with the Guitar Hero application because it was the most unique idea we had. We thought that the unique interaction with the watch (having to turn it 180 degrees around the wrist) was a clever and interesting use. The app also had a much more defined user group (i.e. guitarists) than all of our other ideas.
App Name Ideation
"Guitar Hero" sounded too cheesy (and is already the name of a popular, existing game), so we tried to brainstorm other cool names for our app:
Strummly? → we can buy strumm.ly as a domain
Strum Buddy?
Starstrum? Starstrummed? something with the word strum?
Chordstar? something with the word chord?
- Roloriff -- riff- (in popular music and jazz) a short repeated phrase, frequently played over changing chords or harmonies or used as a background to a solo improvisation
For now, we're going with Strummly. This is subject to change.
Target User Group
Our target user group includes guitarists of all levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced) and of all ages (kids, teens,adults). People who already play the guitar and people who want to learn how to play the guitar on their own can use the Strummly app.
The smart watch's mic will take in a user's guitar sounds as input and the app will analyze the audio frequency / pitch. The smart watch screen will display the chords in progression as you play the correct notes.
This app is useful for beginners who don't know how to play the guitar and want to learn on their own without having to pay for a tutor, because they might not even be able to afford guitar lessons. It's also convenient for self-starters who want to learn the guitar on their own time without having to go through the hassle of scheduling tutoring sessions with a professional.
On the other hand, the app can also be used by advanced guitarists who just want to learn how to play new songs. It can even be used by guitarists who are trying to sing/record an acoustic cover of a song (e.g. Youtube cover artists).
The app does not require the user to purchase any additional hardware other than the smart watch (assuming they already own a guitar). It's easy to use, portable, and can even be brought onstage to musical performances for guidance.
Problem Description & Context
Guitars are everywhere. Everyone knows how to play the guitar (or at least, almost everyone). We know that most people want to learn. Who wouldn't want to be as suave as Jason Mraz or become a super rock star like Jimmy Hendrix? Our team is among the many who don't know how to play the guitar, despite the burning desire to learn. Sure we could just Google "guitar tutorials" and try to figure out where to place our fingers on the strings, but trying to learn something without receiving any feedback will generally have poor results. Even you do download that guitar tutoring app on your phone or watch those how-to videos on Youtube, you'll quickly get tired of the learning style. It's extremely distracting and inconvenient to have to bobble your head back and forth from your hand to the screen as you try to follow a Youtube tutorial or a music sheet.
Strummly, our assistive learning app for your smart watch, will help fix these problems. First, we're going to take a different approach to how the watch is worn and then take advantage of screen placement to ease the process of learning how to play the guitar. You'll need to wear your smart watch such that the screen is facing the same direction your palm face, like so:
You would wear it on the hand that presses down on the frets on the guitar. If you are trying to play a song of chords, the screen will display the chords in progression as you play the correct notes.
This eliminates the hassle of glancing up at an external screen or computer monitor as you try to move your fingers to the correct chords.
Why is a smart watch a good solution to the problem?
Strummly requires the smart watch to be turned 180 degrees around the user's forearm during use and to be worn on the arm that holds the neck of the guitar. This unique interaction with the watch makes the screen visible from your arm while playing the guitar, providing a convenient and unobtrusive way for users to easily view and learn guitar chord progressions without having to change their posture or turn their necks. Users can easily pick up a guitar and start learning anywhere at anytime without prior setup, as long as they're wearing the watch. The watch also provides feedback to guitarist as he or she is playing because the placement of the watch allows the mic to pick up each played note and determine if the note was correctly played or not. The watch's screen will show one chord at a time and will only move to the next chord once the user plays the current chord correctly.
Why is a mobile app a good solution to the problem?
The watch provides the main solution here, but the phone is necessary for this application to be possible. Due to the limited screen space on the smart watch, not a lot can be done from the watch besides viewing chord tutorials and recording chord tunes. The phone will complement the smart watch by providing an interface that displays a little more content than the watch. For example: it can allow users to browse and download new songs/tutorials to later play with the watch. The phone can also provide helpful tips from the application help menu on steps (such as how to properly hold the guitar) or display karaoke-style song lyrics on the screen if the guitarist wants to sing while playing. The phone can even have a calendar utility with practice information so that users can track their progress. These are all useful utilities to have on the phone, as opposed to a desktop client or web application that would require users to set up and be near a computer at all times. Thus, the phone is essential to giving the user the best experience in learning how to play guitar with our smart watch app.
Sketches
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