Street Interviews
My first interviewee was a web developer and instructor at UC Berkeley’s Information School. He carries his phone in his pocket, but complained that they were too heavy. He also did not like how he was always connected and locked in into a communications network, because when he is teaching, he cannot interrupt the class to respond to phone calls or text messages. A smart watch would allow him to glance at the message or call details briefly, but even then, he prefers analogue watches to digital. For him, an ideal wearable device would be embedded into clothes.
My second interviewee was a biology researcher at UC Berkeley. He uses his phone mainly for basic communication tools like texting, but is annoyed by his phone’s short battery life and spotty reception, particularly when he is in the lab. He is also unable to attend to notifications on his phone when he is in the middle of running lab experiments. When he is on the road, he finds it a hassle to take out his phone for traffic or news updates, and would like a smart watch to notify him of traffic disruptions or accidents. He would also use such a watch to search for nearby events, although he would not use it for more tasks requiring his full attention like data analysis of his experiments or watching videos for example.
Brainstorming
Based on my interviewees' backgrounds and mobile habits, I came up with the following twelve ideas for a smart watch app:
- Turn on/off airplane mode on phone, so as to stop phone calls and text messages when one does not want to be distracted
- Better still, reject phone calls and read/reply to text messages from watch
- Prompt instructor of lesson flow (or script) when teaching a class
- Change watch face easily to one’s liking, between analogue and digital for example
- Warn user when phone battery is running low
- Warn user if phone has no reception
- Shows timer or pre-loaded instructions for running experiments
- Allow experimenter to quickly record notes during experiments
- Alert user of public transport disruptions along route if user is taking public transport
- Alert user of traffic accidents based on location if user is driving
- Suggest nearby events based on location
- Notify user of breaking news stories
I decided to focus on Idea 3 as it is a straightforward idea with immediate application, as I have noticed that many instructors and presenters write presentation cues on their phones - or even on their hands - and regularly take them out to remind themselves of the presentation flow.
Since this app would be used during a running presentation, the screen should be as uncluttered as possible for the instructor or presenter to obtain the information he or she needs at a single discreet glance without breaking the flow of the presentation. After some thought, I imagine that the key prompts a user would need to keep themselves on track during a presentation are: (1) the text cues themselves, and (2) a running timer. In addition, the user should be able to switch from one prompt to the next fluidly without being distracted, so I used a ViewPager in my design to allow the user to swipe left or right to switch between cards.
User Feedback
Since my target audience consists primarily of instructors and people who conduct presentations on a regular basis, I enlisted the help of Chengyang Yuan, a current CS61A GSI. He graciously agreed to test my prototype and wrap a flimsy piece of cardboard around his wrist.
He agreed that the app would be useful, as he often found himself glancing at both his notes for cues and his watch for the time when teaching to keep his lessons on track. However, he was unsure if regularly glancing at one’s watch during a presentation would be socially acceptable.
He found the interface to be intuitive and had no problems navigating through the pages. However, the most important feature for him that was missing in the design was to the ability to save multiple presentations. He suggested that these could perhaps be accessed by a list before the start page. He would also prefer a more accessible quit function to return to this list - rather than having to scroll to the last page - in case he erroneously started a presentation.
With regards to the timer, he raised the fact that presentations were often restricted to either end at a set time or after a set duration, overturning my earlier notion that presentations would mostly fall only under the latter category. There definitely needs to be a feature for users to choose whether to show the current time or a running timer during a presentation.
He also wished for additional actions such as double tapping to view the timer (or current time) instead of having it always on-screen. He preferred not to have an action for single taps as it might be triggered accidentally, which would not be the case for a double tap since that would most likely be a deliberate action. Furthermore, he did find swiping left and right to be more intuitive than tapping to advance through the pages. He agreed that during a presentation, there should be only two degrees of freedom (left and right) for swipes, eliminating the chances for unintended gestures triggering actions.
Lastly, for screens with only one action, the start and end screens, he recommended that tapping anywhere on the screen should trigger that action rather than requiring the user to tap specifically on the button.
On the whole, it was heartening to receive validation from a member of my target group that the idea was feasible. However, several big improvements need to be made, namely the ability to store multiple presentations and to choose a timer format. Other design improvements would be implementing an action for double taps, say to switch between the timer and the current time, and also perhaps a long press gesture to end a presentation while in the middle of it.
Comments