As online dating is becoming increasingly prevalent, we are beginning to go on dates with people we’ve never met before. While this has made it easier to meet potential partners, the likelihood of dates going awry has also increased. Amora helps alleviate this problem by functioning as an inconspicuous date safety app. By using subtle swipes on their watch, users can track their alcohol content on dates and stay within their preset limits. Also, users can use subtle swipes on their smartwatch to send a preset emergency text message, or even generate a fake call to get out of awkward situations.
Brainstorming ProcessTo begin with, our first 50 ideas or so were all over the place. We had app ideas for food, health, dating, safety, utility, games, and most other categories that you would find on the app store. However, after a lot of discussion, we narrowed down on a smartwatch app that would use handshakes to exchange contact information, an app to track alcohol intake, an app for helping people giving presentations, and a DJ app that used smartwatch crowdsourcing to decide the next track.
At first, the DJ app seemed very compelling to us, and we therefore decided to investigate it further. However, after realizing that pairing multiple smartwatches with a single phone was not possible, we decided to drop the idea.
After iterating through some other ideas, we went back to our alcohol tracking app. At first, our design idea was to have a comprehensive app that would allow users to track their alcohol intake, and not drink beyond their intended limits. At this point however, our target group was too broad, and there were many other apps on the market similar to ours.
Over time, we started narrowing down on users going on dates, especially with people they met online, and make our app a date safety app. However, after interviewing potential users of our app, we realized that our design was obtrusive and inappropriate for a date. Additionally, our app was lacking features that would allow users to get out of awkward situations on their dates.
Therefore, after a long and detailed design process, we came up with what we call sly design. Essentially, we designed a smartwatch app that would track alcohol intake and also allow users to get out awkward situations by using simple and subtle swipes on their smartwatch. Once we started testing our low-fi design on potential users, we received very useful feedback, and this helped us to reach the final design of our app Amora.
Design Sketches, Variations, and IdeasThroughout the design process, the biggest challenge was to create an interface that would not draw the attention of the other person on the date while keeping helpful functionality for the user.
On the watch, the main interface of the original design had a clock and allows the user to add a drink by just tapping on the screen. However, since drink alcohol levels differ, we implemented the ability to add either a strong drink or weak drink depending on whether the left side or right side of the watch was tapped. Also, in the drink history interface on the watch, we added the icons for different drinks and removed the date attribute since the drink log would be referring to only the current event. The undo and end button were also added to this page since it was closely linked to the drink history. The communication interface was also changed so that the other person would not notice that the user is texting a friend or triggering a fake call.
On the phone, the main interface was changed to look more appealing to the user. In the settings page, the name of the input text field was placed above the input field so that the users will know what field they are filling in after something has already been saved. On the drink history page, the x-axis was changed from date(day of the year) to the event number since users enter data for individual events instead of days.
Overall, the changes created a more subtle way for users to use the amora app while also increasing the control and understanding that the user possesses.
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Competitive AnalysisDrink Control and Tickle are the two apps in the android app store that are our closest competitors. Both these apps offer similar functionality as Amora. Drink Control covers the functionality of keeping track of alcohol consumption, which is one of Amora’s core features. Tickle allows users to create a fake phone call, which allows users to get out of awkward situations. However, our competitors only offer one or the other, while Amora offers both. Amora also has other features such as an emergency text option that texts a real number.
Amora also handles incrementing alcohol and generating calls in a much more subtle manner. Incrementing the drink counter in Amora is quick and easy; hold left for a weak drink, hold right for a strong drink. Whereas in Drink Control, the user has to get his/her phone and open the app to input a drink. Drink control allows the user to keep track of a variety of drinks over extended periods while Amora allows for a more restricted drink selection of strong or weak. This is because limiting the options improves simplicity and allows for subtle and quick incrementing.
Tickle’s user group is more general and broad compared to Amora. Tickle targets people that want out of an awkward situation while Amora targets people that go on first dates. Generating a fake phone call in Amora in as easy as swiping down and holding, which makes it very subtle and quick, whereas Tickle is much more obtrusive because the user has to take out his/her phone. Triggering a call on Tickle would cause suspicion, so we designed Amora to eliminate this factor.
WireframeBelow are the wireframe designs for both the phone and the watch interface. Because of SlyDesign, the unique design technique we developed that delivers minimal visual feedback without compromising understandability, it was crucial to keep the interface as simple as possible. To do this, we kept both the phone and watch interfaces to three main screens all of which are easily discoverable with basic gestures.
The personas that we were interested in were primarily people that are over the age of 21 that were single and going on dates with people that they hadn’t met before in person. These are generally going to be tech-savvy users that have smartwatches as well. When we were doing user-testing and high-fidelity mockups, we primarily focused on women because we identified that more women than men would be interested in ensuring their own safety when they go on dates. When defining these personas more clearly, we looked at both male and female users, and a wide range of ages. Here were some of the perspectives used to influence our design choices.
Ruben, the recovering alcoholic: Ruben is primarily trying to limit their alcohol use because he’s abused it in the past. Primarily interested in using Amora as an alcohol limiting app, he may use the app in situations that are not dates, simply to track alcohol use.
Rachel, the worried dater: Rachel, someone who has had very bad experiences with people they’ve met on dates before, wants to feel safer when approaching people at a bar for the first time. She is very interested in the secrecy of the app, and may or may not utilize the alcohol tracking aspect of the app. She could potentially use the app in situations where drinking is not happening, but still wants to use the communication mode to text or call to get away.
Jane, the widow: Jane hasn’t dated in many years due to having a husband or wife, but is recently re-entering the dating world. She is potentially interested in both alcohol and communication features.
Jayden, the teen: Jayden is under the age of 21 and is wearing the smartwatch and app at the behest of their parents in order to make sure they’re staying safe on a date. The text function is of primary concern for this user so they can text their parents if they need to get picked up quickly.
ScenariosOur scenarios were fairly straightforward, users would be at a bar or restaurant generally on a first date where alcohol would be present. These environments are generally fairly noisy and dark, which would be easy for the user to hide the fact that they’re tracking their drinks with their watch. The interactions with the watch could be made publicly, or slyly in order to hide what was going on. Here are the main scenarios that we considered when developing Amora.
Great first date at a bar: A couple meets for drinks for a first date at the bar. One of the users keeps track of their drinks by subtly tapping the watch screen during the date after they’ve had drinks. This date goes well, neither person gets too drunk, and the couple leaves the bar.
Sketchy first date: The date goes badly, the person is aggressive or makes the user feel uncomfortable for some reason. They trigger the fake phone call in order to excuse themself without making the person uncomfortable or mad. They may or may not be using the alcohol tracker in order to watch their drinks.
Party setting: This scenario would be using the app to keep track of your drinks or text your friend/parents to help you out if you get in a bad situation. However, you wouldn’t need to be on a date to find these functionalities useful.
Non-alcoholic date: This type of date would not require the use of the alcohol tracker, but the fake phone call and text messaging from the communication mode could still be useful for users if things get awkward or uncomfortable.
Everyday Life: While not the most prominent use of the app, we could see that the fake phone call could be useful in other areas of your life in order to get out of uncomfortable situations of all types. However, since you would likely not have the app open and in use, this requires more work to make happen.
User Studies, Details, and FindingsWHO are the interviewees?
Interviewee 1 Description: Early twenties professional who occasionally goes on dates with people she doesn't know. Likes how discreet the app will be, as well as the simplicity of the function. She dislikes that it might be easy to accidentally hit the “Call 911” button, and worries that the drink counter might be a little awkward if it’s noticed or it isn’t that quick and easy to use without being noticed. Her priorities for the app are safety and avoiding social awkwardness when using it.
Interviewee 2 Description: Divorced woman in her forties that frequently drinks while going on dates at bars or restaurants. Likes the idea of being able to keep track of drinks because occasionally she can tell men are trying to get her drunk. She was worried that she might forget to add the new drink to the counter. She also liked the idea of the call 911 button because it may help in a situation where it’s not feasible to let anyone know you’ve called the police for instance in domestic violence situations.
Interviewee 3 Description: Male college student that likes going to bars to watch sports and drink with his friends. He has met some women from Tinder before, mostly goes on dates with women he’s met at bars or from mutual friends. He likes the discreet messaging system on the app because it’s easier to get out of a sticky situation and a phone call from a friend or family member is much more believable that just saying something came up out of the blue. He mentioned that he personally wouldn’t use the drink counter, but could see it being useful for others if they felt pressured to drink and wanted to stay in control. His priorities were that it actually be a smartwatch app, because it’s less awkward than taking out your phone for these actions.
Since it was unfeasible to actually observe people we did not know going on dates until potentially witnessing one that was uncomfortable, we made due by interviewing three people about their dating experience and casually observing a setting where people looked that they may be going on dates where alcohol was present. The interviews were conducted face to face or over the phone and the date analysis was done at a classy restaurant while eating dinner. However, this proved not very fruitful because it did not seem like anyone was particularly uncomfortable, nor getting overly drunk. It’s also quite rude to stare for a prolonged amount of time at a couple on a date at a restaurant or to interrupt them to ask questions about how the date is going.
WHAT did the interviewees think?
Interview 1: During her dates, she described times when she had gotten a little drunker than she expected during the night. She definitely understood the value in having a way to keep track of the drinks that she was having. She mentioned that it would be very easy to forget to keep track of your new drinks if you weren’t used to it and recommended that the app have a reminder vibration every fifteen-thirty minutes to jog the user’s memory and update the drink tally to the correct number. She also admired the dedication to enhancing the safety of the user and making it easy to call emergency services, but worried that it may be accidentally triggered when it wasn’t supposed to be, a surefire concern with any program that can call 911. She also mentioned that while she personally hadn’t had dates where she felt the need to get out of it, she knew that that occasionally happened to friends of hers.
Interview 2: Similarly to Interviewee 1, she expressed that there had been several times when she get a little overly intoxicated during a date or at a bar with a stranger. She definitely acknowledged the need for an app like this to keep track of drinks taken. Additionally she noted that the feature that sent a text to a friend to have them call you was useful as well. She did mention that it may be better to either have a fake phone call occur which would be quicker and happen even if your friend is unavailable, or to send the message to multiple friends which would give you more power to take a call sooner. She also really liked the emergency contact feature because women in domestic violence situations, it can be hard, or impossible to call the police with your husband being in the same room as you, so a discreet method to contact the police that would allow them to show up without you having to call them and talking.
Interview 3: Interviewee 3 recalled a time that a date was going poorly and he wanted an excuse to leave. After his recollection, he praised the app for having a feature to make an excuse to get out of these unpleasant dates without making it too awkward. He liked that there were two different ways to make this excuse, either a fake call or a message to a friend. He said that first, he’d try the messaging one, and if his friend didn’t respond, he’d resort to the fake phone call. The messaging feature was his favorite feature since it would allow for him to be creative and create custom messages based on who he wanted to message. He also loved the fact that the app was designed to be nonintrusive and discreet, since it would make him seem less rude if he left the date due to an urgent phone call. He had a neutral opinion toward the drink counter, since he wasn’t the type to keep track of drinks and knew his limits, but acknowledged that the emergency dial feature would be extremely useful for his safety.
Summary of User Studies
The user testing culminated in a clearly defined goal for our app. The most important thing that we developed was our SlyDesign which was chosen so that users could conduct every actions with our app in a maximum of two actions, and could be done very subtly. This was thought up because we didn’t want to our users to be discovered using our app during the course of date. As interviewees from our first round suggested, the 911 call feature was mostly unnecessary, as it would probably cause more trouble than good. Also, from our original design, the user would not be able to undo drinks. Therefore, we came up with a way for users to undo drinks through the drink log interface that would not be too hard or too easy to use. The confusion that users came by when using our app showed the need to create a help menu to help first time users understand the app. Overall, we were informed to keep user’s out of suspicion and at the same time provide a sense of control.
Final Product DesignOur final design aims to be simplistic and unobtrusive. Amora allows you to keep tabs on you drinking subtly. While it looks like just a simple digital clock to others, the true meaning of the watch face is known by the user. The watch band indicates drink levels which the user can see just by looking at the watch.
Amora has a settings task that needs to be set on the phone before using the watch application. This settings page is set before the user begins the date. After that, the user can add drinks on the drink counter, view drink history and also generate a fake call or send a preset message. After many iterations, here are the tasks that we came up with for our final design.
Task 1: Inputting emergency contacts settings, preset message and intended drink count.
Task 2: Increment drinks on the drinks page by tap and holding the left side for a weak drink or the right side for a strong drink. The band turns progressively from green to red as you increment as shown in the picture after adding two strong drinks.
Task 3: Swiping up to bring drink history information where you can undo drinks or end session.
Task 4: When in a pinch, trigger a fake call by swiping down and holding on the screen.
Task 5: Sending a preset message to your emergency contact by swiping down to access the text/call activity and tapping once.
Task 6: End the date by going into the drink history and tapping end, then go back onto phone to view comprehensive alcohol data while on dates.
Technical Challenges
One of our major technical challenges while designing Amora was to make our watch interactions subtle. We wanted our watch interactions to be subtle enough for the user to perform without their date noticing, but not so simple that the user kept performing the action unintentionally.
Therefore, after trying a plethora of designs, we narrowed down on a tap and hold on the left half of the watch for a adding a mild alcohol drink, and a tap and hold on the right portion for adding a strong alcoholic drink. Moreover, we decided to use vibrations as feedback for the user when they successfully added a drink while on their date.
Another technical challenge we faced was to decide the smartwatch interaction we would use for generating fake calls and sending text messages. After experimenting with different designs and trying it out on users, we came up with the idea of using a swipe to change the rim color to white - signifying that the user was now on the emergency screen.
Once the user was on this screen, he or she could tap to send their preset text message, and tap and hold to generate the fake call.
SummaryAmora is a date safety app for the Moto 360 smartwatch that allows users to track their alcohol intake, and get out of awkward situations. They can do this through simple and subtle gestures on the watch face to keep track of drinks and in the communication mode, send a preset text message to a friend or generate fake call in order to get someone out of a situation. What makes Amora unique is our SlyDesign that allows users to do the above without being obtrusive. Therefore, users can feel safer on their dates without being disrespectful by pulling out their phone, or constantly looking at their smartwatch.
There are several apps on the market that allow users to track alcohol intake and one to generate fake calls, all of these apps have a very conspicuous design that is inappropriate for dates, and none have both capabilities built into one app. Amora goes above and beyond in order to ensure the safety and comfort of our users, and that is why you should “fall in love with Amora.”
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