Part 1: Observing, interviewing, and learning
Person 1: A cook in his 30's working in a restaurant near Berkeley campus
Obersation:
This man in his 30's
is cook and waiter in a restaurant near Berkeley campus called Manhattan Roast & Grill. He
works there full-time pretty much everyday and he always seems busy making burgers, cleaning up the table, or carrying the containers with materials back and forth from the kitchen. As I observed, he always had things to do on
his hands and barely had time to check his phone.
Interviews and what I learned:
He told me he was generally pretty busy cooking or cleaning
up even though there were two people doing the same tasks, but he was kind
enough to talk to me for a little less than ten minutes. When I asked him when
was the last time he remembered not being able to use the phone when he wanted
to, he told me that usually during work, they wouldn’t have much time checking
phones for multiple reasons. He is always busy having
tasks on his hands, and sometimes when he was temporarily free from work for
a few seconds, he found his hands too
dirty or oily to use it. During work, he usually put his phone in his pants pocket.
He usually doesn’t
do anything fancy with his phone besides
checking time, checking and sending messages, and making phone calls. Because
of his busy working schedule, sometimes he couldn’t help but missing some
really important messages and phone calls.
By talking to him,
I noticed that smart phones actually have many limitations too for the people
that work really intensely everyday. As a college student, I have never
realized that, with my hands being free most of the time. When I asked him to
imagine performing
the same task using a wrist worn interface touchscreen, he got kind of
excited and said that it would efficiently solve most of his problems with
sufficient functionality. With the smart watch connected to the phone, he
thought it would be convenient just to
have a verbal command to make the screen display different interfaces like
checking mails or messages. He liked how using a smart watch would not required
him constantly taking out his phone from pocket by his hand. He therefore would
not have to worry about making the screen dirty by always typing and scrolling
with his hands. I also found out that he had a concern about the size and
readability of the watch. He told me that interfaces
with easy instructions would make this idea more feasible. He told me
further that he would prefer picture
display to explanations with words, which was a really good point from my
perspective because no one wants to read paragraphs of words from the little
piece of screen on their wrists.
Person 2: The 55-year-old owner of the grocey store called Johnston Market
Obersation:
The owner of the restaurant seems pretty free throughout the day from my observation, since I went to this store sometimes, and I did not find the business that busy the whole time. He is just sitting near the cashier machine most of the time watching televisions. I figured that he should have much spare time to have access to his phone. Therefore I decided to interview him to see what his interaction with smart phone would be like, and what kind of trouble or difficult experiences has he ever had before.
Interviews and what I learned:
Firstly I asked him to tell me about general experiences with using his phone at work in the store. Not surprisingly, he said there really were not anything too bad about using phone during work, because he was free most of the time and he could not recall any particular times where the phone was not readily available. When I asked him to describe his last bad experience with his smart phone, it was actually when he used his phone at home. Then I went ahead and let him talk more about it. He told me that his wife liked to cook and tried new ways of cuisine a lot. When his wife was cooking, she was not able to use her phone because both of her hands would always be busy. Sometimes if she want to look at the recipe online, she would put the phone at certain locations, it either got dirty easily because of all the sauces, seasonings and oil , or was just located too far from his wife for her to see things on the screen clearly. At the end of the day, he told me that his wife was always annoyed that she needed to clean up the screen and it just frustrated her so much. It seemed his wife were mainly having problems with phones when cooking. She wanted to check her phones with messages and phone calls (kind of similar to the problems the interviewee #1 ran into), and she also wanted to look at the recipe on screen conveniently and clearly preferably with both hands free to actually cook. From both interviewees I realized something in common about the troubles they ran into. They are both busy, when they want to use their phone, but their phones are not readily available because of their situations or jobs. If they were to use a smart watch on their wrists instead, it would be better to increase the usage of verbal commands and less touch/scrolling commands.
Part 2: Brainstorm, prototyping and feedback
Brainstorm (bolded some of my favorite ideas):
For the 1st interviewee (Some of the ideas work for the interviewee #2 too):
1) Showing time and dates and other simple information like temperature on the screen with a black background color to save battery
2) Double tap the screen or use a clear verbal command "unlock" to unlock the phone and get access to other applications on the watch
3) Having both unlock methods because sometimes when users are in the noisy environment the verbal command might not work that well.
4) Watch would vibrate when there is incoming messages and phone calls.
5) verbal command to reply the messages and call back to someone (in quite environment or wear earphones)
6) When the watch vibrates and the user is busy, and cannot respond immediately, should have a button on the side for user to hit within 10 seconds or use verbal command (like "later") to send an automatic message telling the other person that he/she is busy at the moment
7) The watch may have built-in GPS functionality especially when the users want to connect with each other.
8) The watch should contains a calendar synchronized from other devices like laptop or cellphone, and set reminders for the event on each day.
For the 2nd interviewee (Basically creating a cooking recipe application for interviewee's wife):
1) Having an separate external application that can be downloaded online and imported from other electronic devices
2) The application will have sets of recipes of different kinds of food and have different options selected by scrolling/touch-screen commands/activities.
3) After the recipe is selected, the screen will go to the first step of the recipe and will contains instructions and two buttons at the bottom, BACK and NEXT to see previous and next step of the recipe.
4) The application should also use a timer API for users to estimate time used in each step, making the cooking process more convenient.
5) The recipe can be a all-picture application after the recipe is selected for maximizing user visual satisfactions.
Favorite ideas:
My favorite idea (#1) is the vibration function that the watch has when receiving incoming messages and phonecalls, and telling the smart watch to send auto-text when busy. I chose this because I believe the most important purpose to use these devices and applications is to connect with the people around you. This function will make it possible and even more convenient. With this function on the smart watch, people would never miss any messages and phonecalls because the users will always notice when the watch on their wrists vibrate. If they cannot respond because they are busy, they can at least let the person know immediately that they are busy just by a single action, either clicking the button on the side of the watch or by giving a verbal command (Ex. "later").
My 2nd favorite idea (#2) is the cooking recipe application because it is a legitimate external application that users can use on their watch, and it seems convenient and I am going to use the touch-screen approach for users to operate.
Prototyping:
In my prototype, I decided to include both my 1st and 2nd favorite ideas so that my smart watch can be more versatile. I used the cardboard from Amazon boxes and cut them to make the watch itself. Then I cut the blank paper into pieces of circles to represent different interfaces of the screen.
Then after I was done with the basic infrastructure of the watch, I started drawing different interfaces of the watch on paper and I also architeched a flowchart on how the interfaces change with different commands, either touching, scrolling, or giving verbal commands.
The watch will have a side button on the right, and it would be the only button. When the watch is locked, it is shown as the lock screen, with time, date, and temperature on the screen for user to refer. When the user unlock it either by double tapping the screen or saying "unlock" (need to be clear), the watch will be unlocked and it will change to home page (interface #2) with multiple functions as square blocks on the screen. Notice that the time is still and always on the top of the watch. When you get the messages or phonecall, your watch will vibrate. The user will therefore immediately notice but if they are busy and cannot respond, they can hit the side button within 10 seconds for the system to send the person an auto-message informing him/her that the user is busy. Users can click on the message, phone, email blocks and give verbal commands to send texts, emails, or call people (need wired or bluetooth earphones to listen and speak clearly).
If the user opens the cooking recipe application, it will show the user all kinds of the cuisine and dishes. After the user chooses the food they want to cook, it will go straight to the step interface starting with step 1, with BACK button at bottom left and NEXT button at bottom right, and also timer button(a box with a capital 'T' in it) next to "Step X". When you click on timer, it will go to the setting page. Users will scroll number to set time and when they are done, tap on DONE button below. Then click on BACK button to go back to the step page. This way when the user is looking at the recipe it is always on their wrist, and their hands will be free to cook, and they can see the recipe and instructions clearly and close enough. The timer function makes it more convenient for user to cook, thus improving the user experience.
Testing and Feedback:
1) The tester was generally satisfied with the fact that he does not need to use his hands to hold this device all the time (actually NEVER). He said using a wrist worn device make it easier for him to multitask.
2) He especially likes the auto-text function because he himself got annoyed a lot when people ignored his text messages or phonecalls. He stated that by hitting the side button on right, the other people at least will be notified that the user is busy at the moment, which is some really useful information (indirect communication).
3) When he used the cooking recipe application, he said he still needed to use one hand to look at the instructions and it did not really help when only one hand is doing the work(cooking). I think there are definitely better approaches to achieve complete automation, like audio instructions or popping up a virtual screen in the air (air-display). Adding these ueful and high-tech functions will make user eperience far better.
4) The tester told me that he cannot lock the watch after he is done with all the applications, so I added an extra function to lock the screen by holding the side button on right. Then he stated that the usage of side button could be confusing sometimes, when for example if he did not hold the button long enough, it would just do nothing. Or when he tried to send auto-text, he might be holding it too long that it locked the screen but did not send that auto-text. I realized that the usage of each button should always be consistent so that it does not confuse users. Users are not comfirtable with misleading activities for same button. If they find it hard to remember or confusing, they will not use it that often, thus not having a very satisfactory user experience.
5) He also likes the verbal command very much because it is fast and handless. However in the noisy environment, the designer should still focus on how the verbal commands will be received and processed by the system more efficiently and clearly. (sounds filtering and processing)
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