Part One
I started out with a plan to interview ordinary workers at local businesses who would I believed would constantly be using their hands working and might benefit from the convenient of a hands free device.
Early 20s Pizzahhh! Employee (who graduated from Cal last May!)
She uses her phone for two main classes of activities: social and fitness. She mentioned 10 mile runs and is training for a half-marathon, and cardio activities dominated our discussion.
Initially, I discovered that her smart phone usage mostly consisted of social and fitness apps.
We discussed running apps for most of the interview. (She is familiar with Map My Run, Endomondo and various other apps). It turns out that she is very pleased with how nicely her phone integrates her activities (running, cycling, etc. all bundled into one device) and her only qualm with her smart phone were the lack of sensitivity and accuracy of their measurements. She mentioned footsteps being miscounted. I actually suggested she look into an similar app called Strava--which I occasionally use and which coincidentally does work on a select few GPS enabled watches.
My first attempt to bring up a wrist based version with activity-tracking functionality was to attempt to bring up the hands-free problem. Where did she keep her phone when running? She hated it when her phone got sweaty, but she already had a hands free solution: she runs with her phone in an arm band. No sweat. Literally--on the phone, . That's already wearable tech. Furthermore, she mentioned she was contemplating buying a FitBit wristband which has tracking, statistics, and social features. What would separate such a hypothetical smart watch from her future FitBit would be that the support for non only fitness features, and for her, this meant access to social apps too.
We discussed gestures and she mentioned how nice it would be to do “a little shake” at the end of the run which would prompt the hypothetical device to stop recording and log the progress and she was receptive to alternative inputs such as body movement or voices. She also liked the fact that a wrist based device would be lighter weight. But aside from the opportunity to use shakes and jigs and a reduced weight she already has all the fitness--and social--functionality in her smart phone. She did seem skeptical on gestures being misinterpreted.
Conclusions: What she wants from a device is integration and precise functionality to support multiple forms of exercise with accurate statistics. And a few entertaining flourishes that are gesture commands and access to Facebook and other social media would not hurt either.
BART stranger who was raising awareness for a social issue (and gets paid to do so) (20s):
He is currently a college student (at a college in Oakland) so feel free to skip to the third interview below. I decided to conduct the interview because the more information the better and I included this interview because of his very interesting viewpoints regarding "smart" devices.
He mentioned how connectedness is very dangerous--how it was a trap for certain people to be manipulated by nefarious forces. But he did admit to using social media and mostly email. He named quite a few social apps including Facebook and Kik and his favorite app basically allowed the user to use Wi-Fi rather than a data plan to obtain free calling and texting. He then made a revision and noted that he was transitioning to stop using social media apps and wanted to "stick to the basics".
I raised the possibility of bringing some of the social apps he used to use along with email and calling and texting features and he seemed neutral. After denouncing social media again, he had no objections. I said that it did not have to be an ordinary watch with buttons. Holograms and more realistically gestures excited him, and he expressed interest in customizable gestures and in general, ways to make the watch his own.
I broached the topic of sports, due to the past interview. He is an avid basketball player and he also runs and swims. However, he is a purist at heart and he saw no use for technology to help him stay fit. He wants to be in the moment, in the game or other activity and does not want unnecessary distractions. No unnecessary devices either (especially no "smart" ones), so I did not being up a watch.
Essentially, the gist of our wrap up was that a phone should be a phone without a lot of social fluff and a watch should be a watch. Some ideas he was amenable to were traditional watch keeping time and having alarms but also a few phone abilities too including texting and calling and finally some simple utility tools such as creating voice notes, setting timers, and toggling various settings.
Conclusions: He wants customizability and considers the watch to be a fashion statement. Gesturing is awesome for him. People should have the option of opting out for being overly connected. Finally, there should not be too much excess (philosophical and applicable to physical conditioning) but in terms off user interactions, this would be a clean and straight-forward interface. Too much "smartness" can be overwhelming and negative.
Mid 30s employee at the Campus Store.
He is highly reliant on his phone for two things: Facebook and applications to transfer payments. He gets "cranky all day" when he forgets his phone--however this is rare and usually it's always with him. And he is completely pleased with a phone. He mentioned that he liked the directness and convenience of his apps in that they were permanently signed in so he did not have to go through the annoying process of signing in. I took a Facebook App as an example and asked if he could envision it on a wrist based device such as a watch and possibly be further convenient than his phone. He immediately objected and explained that the screen would simply be too tiny and awkward. I asked if ways to chunk an ordinary display up and sequentially display chunks would work, but he believes this would be too inconvenient and he already has his phone. He also mentioned Siri and the existence of voice commands in smart phones already. Gestures did not appeal to him, as he is already extremely content with his phone. He went on to explain that he loved the touch of the phone itself.
I finally asked him if in one of those cranky days (where he left his phone at home) he happened to have a smart watch which happened to have a Facebook and ecommerce features whether he would use it. He would, but he really still prefers his phone, so the conclusion is clear:
Conclusion: Some people will not use a wearable wrist based device when they already have a fully functioning smart phone that is almost always with them. Issues include a loss of richness and functionality. More devices, more problems.
Conclusions spanning all three interviews
These three interviews produced some contradictory results, but also some overarching trends in what a typical "smart" device user would want. The second subject did not want any fitness or social functionality in his devices where as the other two wanted social functionality. The first subject was very keen on hands free fitness functionality. Further more, she welcomed and wanted a device with many features whereas the second wanted a more restricted functionality where only content he deemed essential was present. Essentially this boils down to people lying on different degrees of a spectrum that is connectivity.
The uniting theme was convenience. The first and second subjects were enthusiastic about the hands free quality of a smart watch, and while the third subject was not into a smart watch at all, I did gain insight into what made his phone so appealing to him and that was convenience: he did not like having to repeatedly enter his credentials into login screens, and he also had his phone handy at all times.
Part Two
Brainstorm:
1) Customizable gesture/voice mapper which can “learn” a gesture or voice command and add these as tags to some instruction set. + an API to integrate this with any other app that wants to use instructions from that set.
2) Email notification with different sounds due to different senders which again can be customized by user.
3) An “antispoiler” running app which only displays run info/stats at the end of runs and prompts runner to first guess various stats, thereby training them to gauge themselves.
4) Just a normal alarm app. Add a time and choose a sound or record a custom message.
5) A phone call configuration where user can only receive (accept or block) incoming calls.
6) A UI customizing mechanism paired with other device/website where you can pull a custom image for background/screensaver purposes.
7) A very basic customizable Time displayer (switch from digital to clock)
Independent thought ones (as in not based on any of the interviews)
8) Some basic mini-games. Graphics aren’t important. Just the bare bones.
9) A financial transaction feature syncing with various accounts (Paypal, Google Wallet) but this would definitely not rely on something easy to get wrong such as voice or gesture.
10) Obligatory camera/photography functionality possibly with various social media uploading options.
11) Notepad--jot down by entering text or voice or even voice recording. Also has the ability to push this to a folder in associated devices.
12) Step-by-step (1 step per watch face) GPS map directions.
13) Power/screen intensity/connection manager which allows user to disable and enable various communication streams with other devices.
14) Audio. Some way to play from a user’s playlists from external sources (idea being not to store everything in the device itself but rather pull from elsewhere).
Prototyping
I chose to prototype a simple note-taking app.
I did so because while there are conflicts with more complex social apps, note-taking on the go is something basic, convenient, not too fancy, and great for people on the go who want to jot something down.
I used construction paper, cut out index cards, a pen, and paper clips to make a quick prototype.
The prototype simulates the core screens required to create and then save or discard a voice or text based note. I created a few duplicates of these cards that represent screens, clipped them together on the watch, and then my friend pretended to go through the screens by sequentially unclipping them from the watch to simulate progression through creating notes.
Aside from comments on the uncomfortable wearing the paper clip was, here is is feedback:
Feedback:
Add a backspace button. Right now the only way to go back and revise would be to "stop" or "end" depending on voice or text and then hitting "discard" on the next screen.
In a similar spirit, there should be some preview of what was entered so far for a given point in time. (As it would be terrible if you made mistakes early on but continued and then at the end discarded it all)
He also complained about a lack on an "Open" option in the prototype I gave him, so I actually replaced the "New Note" screen with an updated version which also included an "Open" icon along with the "Open" text. (This is not displayed in the pictures).
Additional possibilities:
My friend and I both talked about additional features, and we decided that that there should be AutoCorrect and also an option after saving to add Tag(s) to the note.
I also considered whether to add more functionality such as cloud saving such as uploading to Google Docs and the like, and I think that there could be two apps. This "Lite" one and a "full" version which does support non-local modes for saving.
Comments