Wearables Projects

I have had opportunities to work on three wearables design projects during my career. This page provides an overview of all of them. 

Wearables project for EchoUser

In late 2013, more and more wearables started emerging in the consumer market. I was tasked with conducting user research on wearables (pre-Apple Watch period) and coming up with some new wearable device design concepts based on the research findings. At the end, I designed a concept for a new smartwatch.

Project length: 5 months.

My role: Lead UX designer, responsible for the user research, interaction design, usability testing and visual design directions. 

PROJECT OUTCOME

Because wearables were just starting to gain their popularity in the SF/Bay area, this project gave EchoUser a better understanding of user needs at the time. This project also gave a leg-up for EchoUser and myself for other later projects, which I listed later in this page. For example, when EchoUser hosted a design jam with Oracle’s Applications User Experience team and Studio Fathom, I presented the research findings to help participants understand more about the user needs for the wearables market at the time. 

User Research 

I conducted research on three types of users: 1. Users who used activity trackers such as Fitbit, 2. Users who used notification focused wearables such as Google Glass and Pebble Smartwatch and 3. Non-users. The user research consisted of 15 user interviews, 7 diary studies, and surveys. I used affinity diagramming to analyze the data which formed the basis for the new smartwatch concept. I learned that the most claimed benefit of wearables was being able to quickly grasp information without having to take out a smartphone. Also the notification centric wearable device users felt that it is more discrete to check notifications when they were involved in face-to-face conversations. Another interesting finding was that non-users felt that they didn't perceive enough benefits to adopt wearables in the market at the time. This depth of user research helped me build a deeper understanding of existing users and potential users for wearable devices at the time.  

Conceptual Design Phase

Based on the major findings, I generated as many ideas as possible as a part of a divergent thinking process. During that time I used sketches, a conceptual model, and storyboards in order to come up with a variety of new wearable device ideas. I have listed a few of my artifacts from the design thinking exercise. Once I finished with that, I had to come down to a single wearable device concept. Here is the summary of the concept:

• Because a smartwatch is a part of a fashion statement for a user, my new smartwatch would have exchangeable straps to match with her or his style of the day.

• The touchscreen would be situated on the inside of the wrist as opposed to the majority of the smartwatches in the market. This would increase privacy and the discreetness of receiving notifications.

• The smartwatch would have many apps which are based on contextual awareness, using its sensors, personal user information and GPS. For instance, the smartwatch would deliver an allergy report notification if it detected that the user was situated at an area which had high allergens like tree pollens. Furthermore, it would let the user log their reaction to allergens which could be further analyzed by a doctor or crowdsourced to make a heat map of the potential allergens affecting an area to help others.

Wireframing, Paper Prototyping and Usability Testing

Now that I had a concept, I created low-fidelity wireframes and conducted light weight usability testing using paper prototypes. The usability testing validated that the participants liked having the screen on the inside of their wrists so it is more discreet. It also demonstrated which gestures and interactions were more intuitive for users and which weren’t. For example, using an iOS 6 style date picker to select contacts made sense to the participants. But a “Tap and hold” gesture to bring up an action menu was not immediately obvious for participants (there was no 3D touch available that time) and therefore it uncovered a need for appropriate tutorials for beginner users. 

Additional Wearables Projects

Design Jam with EchoUser, Oracle Design Team and Studio Fathom

I presented my User Research results at a design jam event to give our participants some understanding of wearable users. It was followed by a design thinking workshop. Here is a blog article about the design jam written by the Oracle Applications User Experience team.  

Designing and Launching a Smartwatch App, Words

I participated in the NestGSV + AT&T Wearables Hackathon in April, 2014. As a UX designer, I paired up with two engineers. Our app received a first prize for the smartwatch category. We further went on to successfully launching two versions of the app on the Pebble App Store. The app lets users practice vocabularies and score themselves to see how well they did. The main audience for the app is students preparing for exams like SAT and GRE. With our Pebble smartwatch app, users can practice on the go without worrying about misplacing their paper flash cards or spilling coffee on them. We made the app fun by adding gamification elements. Users get a point for each word they don’t have to refer to the meaning of, and get a final score at the end. In addition, we built a website where users can track their scores, customize and maintain multiple lists of vocabularies. The app has 900+ downloads since launch.

Here is my blog post about the experience of participating in the hackathon. 

Apple Watch Tinder App Concept

Thinkapps approached EchoUser to take part in their design challenge for designing an Apple Watch app to complement popular iOS apps in the market. It was a fun challenge at the time because Apple Watch hadn’t yet been publicly released. I was on a team of two UX designers on this project. Based on my User Research results, we created interactions and visual design for this app concept. In the end, our app was featured on Thinkapps' blog post.

Additionally, we presented at an Apple Watch meetup group in San Francisco to share our knowledge and experience from the whole design process.