Smart Watch

I think having an analog element would be nice. You could make the outer ring around the crystal move (like a dive watch) so the motion would me more direct and intuitive.

I’d be careful about the arbitrary position of the hour markers. The basic 12 hour watch face is pretty standard and an easy way to ground your UI. A list of daily appts could appear as colored bands around a universal clock face, and they’d be visually and proportionality related to the current time.

yo: Yeah, I think a rotating bezel/outer ring is going to be the most natural interaction. I’ll think on that a bit more.

Brett: That’s a good point. With what I have now, there’s a fair amount of interpreting and counting you’d have to do to figure out when you’re next appointment is and how long it takes. I feel like there’s a solution somewhere between what I have now and what you’re suggesting with a static watch face.

Thanks guys for the interest so far, more soon.

Hi guys,
I’ve been putting together a user profile/persona for the smart watch, so here’s what I have so far. I’ve imagined three different personas and what parts of their lives might benefit from having this smart watch. If you have any suggestions for aspects I’m missing, please let me know!

Smart Watch User Persona

Personal Profile
A: age 22, full time student, works part time to pay for tuition
B: age 28, graduated from college, freelancing
C: age 35, parents, have young children and work part to full time

Primary Motivation
A: organization, want to concentrate on their work, not their schedule
B: wants to keep up with all of their clients and get to meetings on time
C: wants to be in the right place at the right time

Associated motivations
A, B, C: style, fashion, personal expression

existing solutions
A: School planner, laptop/smartphone
B: notebook/planner, smartphone
C: family whiteboard, planner, smartphone

Life Goals
A: wants to do well in college, graduate with honors, have a social life
B: also wants a social life, but wants to TCB and do good work for this clients
C: wants to be there for their family, not stuck working all the time or late

Experience Goals
A; user wants to feel productive and accomplished
B: user wants to feel collected and un-pressured
C: user doesn’t want to worry that they’ve missed something

End Goals
A: wants to do well in their classes
B: wants to have satisfied clients and steady income
C: wants peace and tranquility in their life

i like the way you are developing this project, the interface developments make sense and i’m sure you’ll dial in the aesthetics further when you have more of the the users and their needs figured out.

i like the design of the bezeld cylinder body in your first picture. i wonder if you used a knurled or textured pattern on the beveled surface or on the vertical surface below it as a grip and aesthetic feature of the design ? how about having the 1-12 clock numbers embossed/debossed on that beveled surface ? in that way, when you rotate the bezel to reschedule something, it would ratchet around to the desired schedule position and then spring home to the original clock position ?

the persona suggestions are good, i would back them up with some visual storyboards, showing more about the consumers lifestyles through activities,influences, brand loyalties etc. i would suggest also considering a much older user, blending some classic watch styling into your modern interface design, keeping them in touch with the old and the new. it could have a dome shaped screen, maybe the body has a classic winder as you have suggested in the sketch that serves as some sort of navigation or control. i don’t mean a total steampunk job, just some cues and influences of it might be worth considering…

Thanks, Paul! I’ve been thinking about having texture around the bezel, actually. I did a bit of sketching this morning on the train exploring different textures and materials. If I integrate an over-molded rubber into the bezel design, that would present a nice opportunity to add some color into the design.



I also did a bit of thinking on the interface and how you would see your day or your week displayed on the screen. Right now, I’m thinking that every time you rotate the bezel about 30 deg. it clicks into place and the display changes to week or month view.
Brett: I’m taking your advice with the static watch face after all, I think that makes the most sense.

If you guys have any suggestions I’d live to hear them! I think this weekend I’ll be revising my Illustrator mock ups to reflect the watch face changes, and possibly do a couple higher-quality sketches of the bezel design.

As far as the hardware goes, do a quick search of Baselworld 2012 and SIHH 2012. You’ll see a pretty good cross section of what the watch world is thinking right now.

Baselworld looks interesting, too bad it’s in Switzerland!

http://media.messe.ch/epaper/BASELWORLD/BWDN20120314/pdf/BWDN_20120314.pdf
Looking at one of their magazines from the show(link above), a couple of brands jump out at me as an aesthetic I may want to try for (minus the diamonds): Versace and Roamer.



EDIT: I have some research on watch style trends already, I’ll get a board together soon with my research and some of the Baselworld trends.

I’ve been making some progress on both the hardware design and the interface.

Yo: I’ve been thinking a lot about your comments. I think I want the watch to take a lot of inspiration from existing watches, and showcase its new functionality. I still want to keep a fairly minimal aesthetic, though, so it will definitely have a different look than many watches already out there.


Currently my favorite look is a straight side profile and a slight diamond pattern cut into the bezel. Minimal and functional, yet still cool-looking.

As for the UI, I took the advice of Brett_nyc and based it on a more familiar-looking watch face to make it easier to read.


I’ve added a few new features, such as a calendar, a timer, a compass, and GPS (not entirely sure about GPS, but why not?). The idea behind the Calendar is that it keeps track of either how many appointments you have or how many tasks you complete and displays a kind of info-graphic that shows how much you’ve completed over the course of the year. It also displays how busy you’ll be in the future so you can quickly tell if you can ‘make that meeting’ or ‘take that vacation’, etc.

The ‘App Menu’ wouldn’t be seen normally and would be invoked with a double-press. Normally you switch apps by simply spinning the bezel, but the app menu lets you navigate to a specific app or turn the watch off.

You might poor through this site, lots of reference, new and vintage: http://www.watchismo.com/

Thanks a lot, that’ll be a great resource! I thought I’d mock up something to show where my head’s at right now with the look of the watch. Shown with a leather strap.

That is looking much more designed than your initial pass. Make sure you investigate where the strap interfaces with the actual case. That intersection of materials is critical, as well as the fit adjustment. In a wrist based device a single mm can be the difference between something that is elegant and right to something that looks undersized or cartoonishly large. Try printing out top views in different sized and placing them on your wrist. Make quick 3D studies to get the sense of the right thicknesses.

Yo: Thanks, mocking up the watch is a good idea. And you’re right about the watch strap, If I’m using a standard watch strap I’ll have to be very careful about the attachment points. I really appreciate your input so far, it’s helping me to move this project forward. I just got back from a weeklong vacation to the Grand Canyon (it was pretty cool!), so I’ll be starting up work on this project again this weekend.

Good, good, looking forward to checking it out.

Here are a few more thoughts on how the watch is put together and how you would charge it:



What is that, Penultimate? I hate sketches from that program. So corse!

How do you pop the strap on and off if those spring loaded pins are blind?

Also, with all that tech on the wrist, you might want a more robust connection, like a 1/4 turn lock down of the assembly, so it doesn’t pop off when you knock your wrist against something.

Think about raising the fidelity of your hardware visualization. Right now your UI is tightened down but your hardware visuals are sloppy!

Reference:

http://david-whetstone.com/

Haha, yeah these are definitely loose sketches, I was trying out that new iPad app ‘Paper’. I’ll pull these drawings into Sketchbook Pro and tighten them up. Looking at some of those references, my sketches are not quite up to snuff! Those Fischer Thierry sketches look like they were done after the design was already in CAD, so that might be a bit difficult to achieve at this stage. The Austin Lee drawings look tight but more achievable to me.

For those pins, I could probably add a hole piercing through to the outside of the casing. That way you could push one side in with a paper clip. There could even be a button on the side that releases the pin without tools. Or I could always go the Scott Wilson route and use hex bolts, like with Tik Tok.

For the connection points, I was thinking of having magnets at the bottom and the square peg would just be for alignment. Sorry, I must have left that bit out. But that’s a good idea, I’ll have to do a page of sketches on connection techniques.

EDIT: I’m working on tightening up the hardware design, more updates soon!

I started tightening up the design a bit more, showing how the band interacts with the watch backing. The watch is held in place with a set of magnets, letting you swap out the band and backing quickly for a different color or style.



This view of the underside shows a bit more of how the strap interacts with the backing. You can also see a set of charging connections on the back of the watch that also function as a serial port.



EDIT: The pin release can be pressed in with a paper clip or small tool to remove the strap from the watch backing.

I’m still trying to think of other ways to secure the watch itself to the backing. Magnets are the easy solution but may not be durable enough. Maybe I could use something similar to the old Macbook Pro latches, which only use magnets to deploy small pins which secure the screen closed. Any thoughts or suggestions?

The small details are making it feel more real. The buckle doesn’t seem to match the design right now.

I’m dubious of the magnet connection. As someone who bangs their watch around a bit, I’m concerned it will pop off. You could make a dirty prototype by popping the mechanism out of an inexpensive swatch and gluing a magnet in there. Then glue a magnet onto a cylinder of material. Wear the assembly for a week and see if it pops off in casual use.