Let's go zero to wireframe with wearables! Wearables can be tough to understand and design for, especially if you don’t have experience with the hardware. In one evening we’ll get you up to speed on wearable technology. We’ll talk about two trends, context and continuity, and focus on how those trends will impact the user experience of screen-based wearables. Then we’ll spend the rest of our time getting hands-on by wire framing a smart watch app. In this workshop we will: Explore the world of wearables, and hone in on smart watches. Explore the challenges that come along with screen-based wearables - specifically context and continuity. Get hands-on with smart watches - wireframing a smart watch app with feedback and discussion. You’ll leave this workshop with the skill and knowledge you need to get started designing the UX for smart watches.

1. Wearables Workshop:
UX Essentials
UXPA Conference 2015 - San Diego
Philip Likens

2. Thank You

3. Agenda
6:30 PM
7:50 PM
8:10 PM
9:30 PM
Introductions
State of the Union
Platforms Deep-dive
Break / Playtime
Wireframing Exercise
Presentations & Feedback
End

4. Introductions

5. Who am I?

6. Who are ya’ll?
• What’s your name?
• Where are you from?
• What company do you work for?
• What do you do for them?
• What are you hoping to get out of this
workshop?

7. Wearables Experiences…

8. State of the Union

9. Philip’s 7 Questions for New Tech
What is it?
What can it do?
Why does it matter?
Where do I start?
How do I design for it?
What does it mean to our profession?
Where are we headed?

10. What is it?

11. By definition
Body-borne devices with complex interfaces,
visual displays, multiple use cases, ongoing
connectivity, and some computational power.
What is it?

12. The Internet of Things?
What is it?

13. The Internet of Things?
What is it?

14. -2014 Google IO Keynote
“…And finally, users always have their smart
phone so we want to make sure all these
connected experiences work based on your
smart phone: be it your wearables, be it your
car, or like we have shown with Chrome
Cast, your television…”

15. The Internet of Things?
What is it?

16. What can it do?

17. Log
Athos
What Can It Do?

18. Notify
What Can It Do?
Ringly

19. Communicate
Cuff
What Can It Do?

20. Monitor
Sproutling
What Can It Do?

21. Record
Kapture
What Can It Do?

22. Find
Google Glass
What Can It Do?

23. Consume
Bragi Dash
What Can It Do?

24. Control
Samsung Gear
What Can It Do?

25. Verify
Nymi
What Can It Do?

26. Comfort
FiLIP
What Can It Do?

27. Others
Digitsole
What Can It Do?

28. Why does it matter?

29. In tune with things we care about
Why does it matter?
?
Withings Activite

30. -Google IO 2014
“Across the world, people check their
Android phones an average of
125 times every day.”

31. Technology Adoption = Scary Fast
www.asymco.com/2013/11/18/seeing-whats-next-2/
Why does it matter?
45 YRS
30 YRS
15 YRS
0 YRS
PHONE RADIO SMART PHONE TABLET SMART WATCH
?
?

32. Who are the leaders?

33. Fitness
FitBit est 67% Units Shipped in 2014
Jawbone est 18% Units Shipped in 2014
Nike est 11% Units Shipped in 2014
Microsoft
Garmin, Polar
Hexoskin, Athos
Who are the leaders?

34. Smart Watches
Pebble est 700k Units Shipped in 2014
Google est 720k Units Shipped in 2014 with Wear
Samsung est 1.2mm Units Shipped in 2014
Apple est 7mm Units Sold in Q2 2015
Who are the leaders?

35. Heads up Displays
• Google?
• BMW
• Skully
• More to come for industrial / business /
medical use
Who are the leaders?

36. How do I design for it?

37. What does it mean for our
profession?

38. App building difficulty*
*All figures approximate
What does it mean for our profession?
Whoa Nelly!
Difficult
Not Easy
Easy
2008 2010 2012 2014 2016

39. Design for Context
Consider the environment
Leverage sensors
Be careful of speculation
What does it mean for our profession?

40. -Ami Ben David
“A contextual product understands the full
story around a human experience, in order
to bring users exactly what they want,
with minimal interaction.”

41. -Ami Ben David
“The user context is about how people are
different. It’s about what every user likes,
hates, owns (a digital watch?), installs
(apps?) and likes on social networks. It’s
also about the user’s state of mind (bored,
late, hungry,etc.), their habits and their state
of motion (is the user standing, moving,
running).”

42. -Ami Ben David
“The environmental context captures the
time, the day, the location, the type of place
(home, work, shop, train station,etc.), other
networks or devices the user is connected
to, or any other physical aspect that
influences your application.”

43. -Ami Ben David
“The world context looks at what is
happening elsewhere that may be related to
the user, such as sports events, news
events, weather, flight delays, traffic jams,
package delivery times, a TV show
everyone’s watching, or something
trending on Twitter.”

44. Historical context vs context sensing
• Historical Context refers to user's context that is saved either locally
or online for later analysis and usage. Examples of Historical Context
are the user's visited locations, user's checkins and user's travelled
routes. This information can be later analyzed using a Behavioral
model to produce predictions based on the user's history.
• Context Sensing refers to user's current context. This kind of context
information is called "context state". A group of "context states"
conform a "snapshot" of the current user's context, such as where
the user is, what the user is doing, how is the user's surrounding
environment, etc. This snapshot is formally called the "state vector",
which contains a collection of "context states" describing the user's
current context.
Source: intel.com
What does it mean for our profession? / Design for Context

45. Context engines
• Google Now on Tap
• Apple’s Location relevant Apps
• Factual
• …?
What does it mean for our profession? / Design for Context

46. -Android Wear Documentation
“By using device sensors and other
contextual cues, your app can reveal
information and functionality precisely when
the user needs it, at a glance.”

50. Most advanced implementations
• Google Now
• Apple Watch / iPhone / Wrist interplay
• Apple’s Messages
• …
What does it mean for our profession? / Design for Context

51. Design for Continuity
• Think about what you’re calling the user to do
• Make it easy for them to pick up where they
left off
• Assume interruption
What does it mean for our profession?

52. Google Dictionary
“The unbroken and consistent
existence or operation of something
over a period of time.”

53. Google
• Open on phone
• Chrome can sync tabs across devices
What does it mean for our profession? / Design for continuity

54. Apple
• Handoff
• Calls & texts on other devices
• Network sharing
What does it mean for our profession? / Design for continuity

55. Design for Voice
• Voice will be a huge part of the next 5-10 years.
• Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft - all betting
on it.
• As UXers, are we glorified Graphic Designers
or truly concerned with UX?
What does it mean for our profession?

56. –All the IT people everywhere
“Voice? We already do that.
Our IVR customer support
system is awesome.”

57. Brands Investing
• Microsoft - “Hey Cortana…”
• Google - Now “Ok Google…”
• Amazon - Echo “Alexa…”
• Nuance (Powers Samsung’s S Voice)
• Apple - Siri

58. Cards
• Modular / atomic content & functionality
• Take actions directly from information /
notifications
• Move away from app-centric thinking
• Moving toward apps as services?
• Worth reading https://blog.intercom.io/the-end-
of-apps-as-we-know-them/
What does it mean for our profession?

59. App building difficulty*
*All figures approximate
What does it mean for our profession?
Whoa Nelly!
Difficult
Not Easy
Easy
2008 2010 2012 2014 2016

60. Where are we headed?

61. Holy Grail
• Watch w/ Cell: notifications / small tasks /
emergencies
• BLE Headset: audio content consumption,
talking on the phone, small content creation
• 7” Tablet w/ Cell: creation + consumption
• Laptop: creation + consumption power use
Where are we headed?

62. Devices in Everyday Life
Where are we headed?
voice/watch/phone/tablet/car/laptop
Kids:
Commute:
Walking:
Desk:
Meetings:
Lunch:
Evenings:
+
+
+
-
-
-
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
-
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
-
+
-
+
+
+
+
-
+
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
+
+
-
+

63. Devices traveling in DC
Where are we headed?
voice/watch/phone/tablet/car/laptop
Train:
Walking:
Airport:
-
+
-
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
-
+
-
-
-
-
-
+

64. Other Thoughts
• Fashion Matters
• OS consolidation brings better UX
• Fitness bands largely disappear
• Connectivity has to resolve Experience has to
propagate before mass adoption
• Touch (only) is not the holy grail
Where are we headed?

65. Thoughts, Questions?

66. Platforms Deepdive

67. Tizen (Samsung)

68. Either Samsung will go all-in
or it will die. Next…

69. Pebble

70. It’s all in flux. But…

71. Hardware
Source: pebble.com
Pebble

72. Timeline
Source: pebble.com
Pebble

73. Select / More
Source: pebble.com
Pebble

74. Lists
Source: pebble.com
Pebble

75. Set information
Source: pebble.com
Pebble

76. Android Wear

77. Hardware
Source: phandroid.com
Android Wear

78. Creative vision
• Launched automatically: Wearable apps are
aware of the user’s context - time, location,
physical activity, and so on. The apps use this
information to insert cards into the stream when
they become relevant. This makes Android
Wear timely, relevant and very specific.
• Glanceable
• Zero or low interaction
Source: google.com
Android Wear

79. The Home Screen
• The background, showing either content relating to the first
card or a custom watch face design, depending on the
watch face the user has chosen.
• Tapping anywhere on the background or saying "Ok
Google" starts a voice query.
• Status indicators, showing connectivity, charging status,
airplane mode, and in some watch faces a count of unread
items.
• The top ranked card in the Context Stream, peeking up at
the bottom of the screen. The amount of the peek card that
appears is determined by the current watch face.
Source: google.com
Android Wear

80. The Home Screen
Source: google.com
Android Wear

81. The Cue Card
• The cue card allows users to speak to Google. The cue card is
opened by saying, “OK Google” or by tapping on the background
of the home screen. Swiping up on the cue card shows a list of
suggested voice commands, which can also be tapped.
• Each suggested voice command activates a specific type of
intent. Multiple applications may register for a single voice intent,
and the user will have the opportunity to choose which
application they prefer to use.
• Applications can respond to a voice command by adding or
updating a stream card, or by launching a full screen application.
Voice input often takes the form of a command, such as "remind
me to get milk.”
Source: google.com
Android Wear

82. The Cue Card
Source: google.com
Android Wear

83. The Context Stream
• The context stream is a vertical list of cards, each showing a useful
or timely piece of information, much like the Google Now feature
on Android phones and tablets. Your application can create cards
and inject them into the stream when they are most likely to be
useful.
• This UI model ensures that users don’t have to launch many
different applications to check for updates; they can simply glance
at their stream for a brief update on what’s important to them.
• Cards in the stream are more than simple notifications. They can
be swiped horizontally to reveal additional pages. Cards can also
be dismissed by swiping left to right, removing them from the
stream until the next time the app has useful information to display.
Source: google.com
Android Wear

84. The Context Stream
Source: 2359media.com
Android Wear

85. Notifications
• Bridged notifications, such as new message
notifications, are pushed to the wearable from the
connected handheld using standard Android
notifications. They require very little or no Wear-
specific code.
• Contextual notifications, such as an exercise card that
appears when you begin running, are generated locally
on the wearable and appear at contextually relevant
moments. You can do more with this kind of card than
with a notification bridged from the handheld.
Source: google.com
Android Wear

86. Notifications
Bridged notifications Contextual notifications
Source: justinribeiro.com & google.com
Android Wear

87. Apps
• Users are used to tapping icons to launch apps.
Android Wear is different. A typical Wear app adds a
card to the stream at a contextually relevant moment. It
might have a button that opens a full screen view for a
fast micro interaction, but it just as well might not.
• We strongly recommend not building apps the user
has to launch and quit before thinking really hard about
how you could react to a specific location, activity, time
of day, or something happening in the cloud.
Source: google.com
Android Wear

88. Custom App Layouts
• There are some things you can’t do on a card.
Swiping in many directions on a map or
controlling a game with a joystick are a couple
examples. In those cases it might be good idea
to momentarily go full screen.
Source: google.com
Android Wear

89. Elements: Cards
Source: google.com
Android Wear

90. Elements: Pages
• Supplementary information should be displayed
on additional cards to the right of a main
Context Stream card. Actions should always
come after pages.
Source: google.com
Android Wear

91. Elements: Action buttons
• These are system-rendered buttons that
appear to the right of detail cards. They
consist of a white icon set on a blue
system-rendered circular button and a
short caption with a verb. Actions should
be limited to three for a single card row.
• Tapping on an action button can cause
an action to be executed, an action to
be continued on the companion
handheld, or a full screen activity to be
invoked for further input.
Source: google.com
Android Wear

92. Elements: Actions on cards
• Should not require a text label to be
understood.
• Should only result in something
happening on the wearable (apart
from web links to open them on the
phone).
• One action per card.
• Good examples: play and pause
music, toggle light switch on and off,
navigate to an address, and call a
phone number.
Source: google.com
Android Wear

93. Elements: Selection List
• These are system-rendered buttons that
appear to the right of detail cards. They
consist of a white icon set on a blue
system-rendered circular button and a
short caption with a verb. Actions should
be limited to three for a single card row.
• Tapping on an action button can cause
an action to be executed, an action to
be continued on the companion
handheld, or a full screen activity to be
invoked for further input.
Source: google.com
Android Wear

94. Example
Source: google.com
Android Wear

95. Apple Watch

96. Hardware
Source: apple.com
Apple Watch

97. Notifications
• Notifications on Apple Watch communicate
high-value and immediate information through
quick interactions. Notifications occur in two
stages–– short looks and long looks.
Source: apple.com
Apple Watch

98. Notifications: Short looks
• Short looks appear briefly, giving the wearer just
enough time to see what the notification is about and
which app sent it.
• Make titles short and easy to understand. Space for
titles is limited, so keep titles brief and put detailed
information in the body of your notification.
• Keep privacy in mind. Short looks are intended to be
discreet and provide only basic information. Avoid
including potentially sensitive text in the notification’s
title.
Source: apple.com
Apple Watch

99. Notifications: Short looks
Source: apple.com
Apple Watch

100. Notifications: Long looks
• Long looks provide more detail about an incoming
notification. The long look appears when the wearer’s wrist
remains raised or when the wearer taps a short look.
• Although it’s best to be succinct, wearers can swipe vertically
or use the Digital Crown to scroll your long look as needed.
• Add up to four custom action buttons. Apple Watch shares
the interactive notification types already registered by your
iOS app and uses them to configure custom action buttons.
The system determines which buttons to display based on a
notification’s type and automatically adds a Dismiss button
after all custom buttons.
Source: apple.com
Apple Watch

101. Notifications: Long looks
Source: apple.com
Apple Watch

102. Glances
• Glances are browsable collections of timely and
contextually relevant moments from the
wearer’s favorite apps.
• Because people can choose which glances
they want to display, glances should always
offer value and be relevant.
• Always left aligned.
Source: apple.com
Apple Watch

103. Glances
Source: apple.com
Apple Watch

104. Navigation
• Page-based navigation is best suited for a flat collection of
information in which all items are peers. Each item is
displayed on a single page that scrolls vertically. Wearers
swipe horizontally to navigate from page to page.
• Hierarchical navigation is best suited for master-detail
interfaces or for presenting a navigable list of options. When
wearers tap an item in a hierarchy, a new screen appears
that displays details about that item.
• Use modal sheets to extend your interface, if necessary.
Although you must choose a single navigation style, you
can present a modal sheet from either style.
Source: apple.com
Apple Watch

105. Navigation: Page-based
Source: apple.com
Apple Watch

106. Navigation: Hierarchical
Source: tutsplus.com
Apple Watch

107. Navigation: Modal sheets
• Retitle the Close button if it
makes sense.
ex. Dismiss or Cancel.
• Don’t use “Back” or “<“ in the
Close button title.
• Provide a separate Accept
button. If you want the wearer
to explicitly accept changes,
provide a separate button in
the body of your interface.
Source: apple.com
Apple Watch

108. Handoff
• Apple Watch helps people quickly access information,
but there are times when they may want to dive deeper
into content on their iOS devices. Your Apple Watch
app uses Handoff to convey information about the
wearer’s current activity to their other devices.
• People initiate Handoff by swiping up on your app icon
on an iOS device’s lock screen. When your iOS app
receives a Handoff request, it uses the provided
information to continue the task that was initiated on
Apple Watch.
Source: apple.com
Apple Watch

109. Handoff
Source: thedeepblog.com
Apple Watch

110. Force Touch
With Force Touch, pressing
firmly on the screen brings up
additional controls in apps like
Messages, Music, and Calendar.
It also lets you select different
watch faces, pause or end a
workout, search an address in
Maps, and more. Force Touch is
the most significant new sensing
capability since Multi-Touch.
Source: apple.com
Apple Watch

111. Example
Source: TripCase App
Apple Watch

112. Thoughts, Questions?

113. Break / Playtime
Be back by 8:10

114. Wireframing Exercise

115. Rules of the game
• Create an Apple Watch app using your paper prototyping
materials and cheat-sheet
• Choose your navigation structure, use both short and
long looks (notifications), a glance, modal sheets, and a
force-press menu
• Work in groups to help figure things out
• Share a concept or work on your own - your choice
• Sharing and feedback at 9pm (until we run out of time)
• Take photos of your paper prototype as you step through
it in order - we’ll present those (Apple lightning connector)
https://goo.gl/3esutt for assets

116. Presentations & Feedback