Our brief for this first project is to design a minimum of three screens for a smartwatch. There is no topic that we are to follow and design on, so the project allows a very creative approach. It is to be completed in two weeks, a very short time frame, which seemed very stressful to me at first, but we have been assured that it is manageable as it is only a small project. I think that this a very good starting project for the new semester, which will get me back into the routine of designing.

Smartwatches

To commence the project, I wanted to start with some research about smartwatches.

Smartwatches are one of the most popular wearable design to date. It has vastly developed from a regular watch, now equipped with a large inclusion of what a smartphone can do. Apart from the connection to your phone, smartwatches are undoubtably most often used for the tracking and monitoring of fitness and health conditions, and has been proven to have a very positive outcome on people’s lifestyle. As technology keeps improving rapidly, we can assume that the power and usages of a smartwatch will also keep improving and many new things will be introduces. At the moment, the smartwatch is limited to what it can do. This new project has really had me wondering, what else could a smartwatch be able to soon in the future? Although now we see some ideas as unrealistic, there is many possibilities that it could be achievable. From a designers view, these are new approaches to technologies that we will have to experiment with.

Currently, the apple watch is the most common and famous smartwatch.

In terms of the user interaction of the apple watch, it uses gestures and action buttons which makes it much easier for the user to access what they desire. They are customisable and interactive which allow a close personal connection to the device and the content. Depending on the device someone is using, people can make gestures on a touchscreen, in the air, or on a range of input devices. Below is a list of the gestures that are available on an apple watch. We can see that all the gestures are consistent through their devices which I thought was a something small to point out.

My idea and target audience

In the first week of this module we began our ideation for this project. This can be seen in further detail in the ideation page. However, my idea was a situation of someone enjoying a festival, concert, club, or any event of a similar manner, it cannot be denied that spiking of drinks in this situation is still a very big problem everywhere. This is a very dangerous situation that can put someone at harm in many ways. However, usually people are unaware that this has happened to them in the moment. My idea was to create an app that will detect if any substance has entered your body. Before anything can happen or take effect on you, the app and watch will alert you and give prompts with a small variety of options to get or call for help. I think this is a very good thing to ensure much better safety for everyone in these situations.

This is a very serious crime, to which I thought would be great if some additional support could be created. Although highly unlikely that it is realistic enough to be created with the technology we have now, I am till very interested to see a design of how this app could be experienced by the user through a watch.

Reading a few articles on the topic, this is a serious an still very common issue in the UK, that may often lead to very unwanted and unsafe situations to take place. Below is some statistics made by the NCPP, which shows the number of reports have been made to the police in the past year. The data they accumulated also shows that the average age of those reporting spiking incident is 27, with the majority (74%) of victims identifying as female. However, reading some more articles, the data for this is likely inaccurate and an underestimation to the times this happens. A different study I read by Students Organisation for Sustainability stated that over 70% of people who had been spiked did not end up reporting the incident to anyone. It was a correlation that younger users would be less willing to report incidents, which would mean that the average age stated by NCPP may be inaccurate.

Existing apps

Before beginning any kind of designs, I wanted to research some existing apps on an apple watch, in order to see the standard functions and layout that apple uses. We can see in the images above that information on a watch is very limited, so only essential information is displayed. This makes the layout appear very minimal. We can also see that icons are often quite large and within a circular shape, which is consistent through out all different apps. Colour is minimal too. All types of screens that I have seen on an apple watch has a black background, with white text. Secondary bright colours are used for text in some cases, but this is also minimally used. I believe this is used in this way as a method of relaying information as quick as possible without any unnecessary complications.

Another thing that I have noticed that I thought was worth pointing out is, the small margin that is allowed for the screens. Margins are much bigger in other screens or other print design, but the apple watch avoids wasting any valuable space of the screen.