Watches in the Wild

Watches in the Wild

Part 1

        Efficient and fast mobile application accessibility is key to providing great user experience for someone who is constantly on the go. I primarily wanted to observe and learn about how a smartwatch could aid people who have this specific kind of lifestyle. Thus, I went out to interview corporate-working, young adults in the U.S. (people that, I thought, most likely had this “on the go” lifestyle) to figure out needs and desires that they have in common and how such a watch could improve their lives by accommodating these needs and desires. 

        I first talked to a 23 year old grants coordinator at a healthcare nonprofit and asked her several questions about her mobile phone and application usage. I found out very early that she is an avid and frequent traveler since her family lives abroad; as a result, she is very familiar with a spectrum of organizational apps that help her plan trips, book flight tickets, and do anything of the sort (e.g. Passbook for iPhone). She said that she, “want[s] to look at [her] flight details while at an airport, to figure out which gate [she] was supposed to go to” and that, “[she’s] been storing plane tickets in [her] phone for a while, and [does] so whenever airlines offer that option.” Due to her highly active traveling lifestyle and the fact that she usually keeps her phone in her purse (not always readily available), she expressed her desire for fast, efficient interactions with apps that help her save time and energy while planning her flights.

        I then asked her to imagine performing the same tasks concerning flight planning and coordination, except this time, with a smartwatch. I then asked her to tell me some things she would want the smartwatch to do to make her life easier. She said, “I would hope my smartwatch is synced to a calendar of some sort, so it knows that I'll be trying to look at flight details on the day I'm supposed to fly somewhere - I'd click on 'flight details' or something on my smartwatch and see departure time, airline, gate, etc. Not sure about other people, but I've had to use airline apps / mobile tickets pretty frequently in the past few years because my family lives abroad.”

        From this first interview, I learned that people who are constantly “on-the-go” highly benefit from apps that can take care of their duties for them because they don’t have the immediate time or energy to. In addition, this interview showed me that even a little help from using an efficient app (like Passbooks) goes a very long way for people that can use all the time and energy they can get.

        For my second interview, I talked to a 26 year old associate at Buck Consultants and asked him what his life was like and how a smartwatch could help improve it. I first asked him to describe the last time he wanted to access his phone but he couldn’t and what action he specifically wanted to do. He simply wanted to check the time; however, he described the process as extensive and lengthy since he had to, “1) Pull the phone out of [his] pocket. 2) Press a button to wake up the screen. 3) Look at the clock on the screen to determine what time it is.”

        I asked him what he would expect in a smartwatch. He said, “[My] primary task would be to check the time. This involves bringing my wrist up from hanging by my side to the appropriate vantage point. At this point (or ideally just before), the screen should be activated and displaying a watch face with the correct time. In addition, subtle and unobtrusive notifications that do not obscure the watch face (unlike on Android Wear) would be nice.” He also strongly expressed that he would much rather have an app sacrifice an aesthetically pleasing design for more efficient UX.

        From this interview, I learned that something as small as the delay it takes for a screen to turn on to view the time makes a huge impact (sometimes a make-or-break impact) on the user experience of a product. Usually, the faster the product is at accomplishing a user’s needs, the better and more convenient it is for the user, especially for a busy, “on-the-go” user. I also learned that sometimes, all a user wants, like the young man I interviewed, is the efficiency of an app as opposed to having a fancy, visually pleasing user interface; this particular insight reveals a decent conjecture about where a “busy-bee’s” priorities lie in terms of app usage.

Part 1 Conclusion:

        After these two interviews, I noticed some common patterns and desires that this specific audience wants in terms of mobile app accessibility, functionality and efficiency. One thing was that they wanted the least latency possible in order to get their task or job done. In addition to that, when I asked them about what they wanted in a smartwatch, I noticed that they wanted the application, phone, or smartwatch to do most of the work for them (e.g. remind them of important dates, store their flight information, show them the time, etc.). Thus, it seems that this specific audience values how efficient their daily activities are carried out through their apps much more than just an aesthetically pleasing user interface for an app.

Part 2

Based on the information I gathered above, I’ve come up with a multitude of ideas that could potentially help corporate-working, young adults with their fast-paced and busy lifestyles:

1. Smartwatch calendar app that only displays the next event the user needs to attend and notifies the user via alarm, vibration, etc. prior to the start of the event.
2. Time application that senses when the user moves his wrist towards his face in order to automatically wake the lock screen to display the time.
3. Email application that only supports reading incoming emails and responding via voice for users who need to respond in a pinch.
4. Flight booking/coordination app that stores all flight ticket information and provides concise notifications for “on-the-day-of” flight information, boarding time, etc.
5. Walkie-talkie application (similar to Voxer) that allows the recording of short messages, and sending to and from smartwatches, voice notes, etc. in order to provide users with fast communication in a pinch.
6. To-do list app that displays a grocery-style checklist per day on the watch and vibrates periodically to remind the user that there are still items in the queue (good for errands, busy lifestyles).
7. Yelp-like app for the smartwatch that displays the three nearest coffee shops, restaurants, grocery stores, etc. based on the user’s location for “on-the-go” shopping.
8. Bus schedule application that allows to configure daily stop locations, bus routes and displays the next bus arrival time (as opposed to a list of times) for “on-the-go” use.
9. Uber-like smartwatch application that saves time (e.g. starting up, setting up starting/end points via dropping pins, etc.) by calling a driver based on a series of taps and automatically sharing your location with the driver.
10. Water-intake monitoring application that reminds the user, at specified time intervals, to drink water (especially handy for people that need to stay hydrated but are too busy to keep track on their own).
11. Exercise app that gives daily “exercise-while-working” tips, reminds user to get up and walk around once in awhile, sets step counts, track ideal heart rates for weight loss, dictates workout periods/breaks, etc. along with vibration and display notifications to help the user stay active while leading a busy lifestyle.
12. GPS/Directions app with text and voice capability, that is synced with your mobile phone, so that you don’t have to look down at your phone while you’re trying to walk/drive through the streets.

        My favorite idea, and the idea I chose to prototype, was #5 because I felt that this is this a great alternative to texting (given that a user only has a smartwatch) and an efficient way to communicate with people with limited time and small touchscreen space.

        Below is a picture of "Walk&Talk" my finished prototype, watch screens and app flow. The app's main purpose is to provide an efficient alternative to texting and calling by allowing smartwatch users to communicate via voice message sending. I made the watch using cardboard and post-its to simulate the watch screens the user would interact with.

I tested "Walk&Talk" with two corporate-working, young adults: the first one works at a tech startup and the second one works at Buck Consultants (the same person I interviewed in Part 1). There are pictures below that show the two testers undergoing user testing.

There were several major insights I learned based on user feedback on my prototype:

• Both users found it hard to navigate through my app with small tap targets and hard-to-find buttons. Specifically, they thought they were "too close together." Thus, cutting down on the number of buttons the app has as well as making use of all available space the app can get for button "tappability" (if buttons are absolutely necessary) are some ideas to keep in mind for future revisions of "Walk&Talk."
  
• Both users really enjoyed the inbox and "tap to record" screens because they thought the UI was clean, simple and concise for a small watch interface. I learned that this kind of UI allows the user to send/listen/check messages efficiently,  improving the overall UX. This is something that should be developed further for more parts of the application in future iterations.
  
• Both users tried to interact with the app by doing other gestures than tapping, such as swiping and dragging; however, I didn't account for any of those types of gestures when making my prototype. From this piece of feedback, I realized that I shouldn't assume that the user is oblivious to the multitude of different touch gestures and make up for it by just making buttons. For future app revisions, including those gestures are necessary for better UX since they are efficient for navigating through an app and help with saving watch screen space by cutting down the number of buttons needed.
  
• Lastly, both users noticed that there were many intermediate screens between button taps and that they wanted a more seamless flow while using the app. They also commented that these types of screens were unnecessary. Having more of these "loading" screens or any variant of the sort give the impression that an app is slow to respond to user interaction, depending on the nature of the app; thus, I should cut down on the number of different screens that are shown per user interaction so that there is less latency between the functionalities of an app.