Designing for Wearables: Effective UX for Current and Future Devices

192 Pages·2017·24.552 MB·English

by  Scott Sullivan

D esigning for
Wearables
EFFECTIVE UX FOR CURRENT AND FUTURE DEVICES
Scott Sullivan
Foreword by Matt Nish-Lapidus

Praise for Designing for Wearables
“An excellent guide on how different forms of wearables developed,
specific examples of what is happening now and how it works,
and how people can practically frame their own ideas for product
development. Use it to understand the different types of hardware
and the user needs that are being met now and could be met in
the future.”
—ALASTAIR SOMERVILLE
SENSORY DESIGN CONSULTANT,
ACUITY DESIGN
“The future is here, and there’s no better resource to guide us through
the possibilities, promises, and pitfalls of designing for wearables
than Scott Sullivan’s thoughtful and timely work.”
—JESSE JAMES GARRETT
AUTHOR OF THE ELEMENTS OF USER EXPERIENCE

Designing for Wearables
Effective UX for Current
and Future Devices
Scott Sullivan
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Designing for Wearables
by Scott Sullivan
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978-1-491-94415-8
[LSI]
To Marita, who discussed in detail every
paragraph in this book for an entire year,
and still stayed with me.

[ contents ]
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Chapter 1 Design Follows Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Digital Maturity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Human Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The “Us” Part of Maturity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Chapter 2 Activity Trackers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Early Step Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Connected Fitness Trackers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Not All Steps Are Equal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
More of the Same . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
More Sensors and Machine Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Telling the Rest of the Health Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Designing Fitness Trackers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Pulling It All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Chapter 3 Smartwatches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
The First Calculator Watch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
The Microchip Explosion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Early Wrist Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Ecosystem Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Cell Phones and The Modern Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Frameworks for Smartwatch Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Designing for Smartwatches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Designing Smartwatches Themselves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Pulling This All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
vii
Chapter 4 The Glass Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
A Truly Wearable Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
The Development of Google Glass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
One Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Pulling This All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Chapter 5 Wearable Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Narrative: Design for the Photographed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
GoPros for Everyone! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Handling the Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Computer-Mediated Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Pulling It All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Chapter 6 Cognitive Wearables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Fitness Trackers for Your Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Stress and Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Altering Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Learning to Learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Pulling It All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Chapter 7 Service Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Service Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
The Double Diamond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Communication Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Service Design and Machine Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
What Machine Learning Looks Like . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Pulling It All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Chapter 8 Embodiment and Perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
How We Think . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
What Is Embodiment? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Cognition and Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Embodied Wearable Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Breaking Down Perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
viii  |   CONTENTS