Designing for Wearables: Effective UX for Current and Future Devices

by Scott Sullivan

Overview

Now may be the perfect time to enter the wearables industry. With the range of products that have appeared in recent years, you can determine which ideas resonate with users and which don’t before leaping into the market. In this practical guide, author Scott Sullivan examines the current wearables ecosystem and then demonstrates the impact that service design in particular will have on these types of devices going forward.

You’ll learn about the history and influence of activity trackers, smartwatches, wearable cameras, the controversial Google Glass experiment, and other devices that have come out of the recent Wild West period. This book also dives into many other aspects of wearables design, including tools for creating new products and methodologies for measuring their usefulness.

You’ll explore:

• Emerging types of wearable technologies
• How to design services around wearable devices
• Key concepts that govern service design
• Prototyping processes and tools such as Arduino and Processing
• The importance of storytelling for introducing new wearables
• How wearables will change our relationship with computers

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491944158
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	01/07/2017
Pages:	190
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Scott Sullivan is an applied designer at Adaptive Path, where he has recently worked on software and messaging for emerging technologies and wearable devices. Before joining Adaptive Path, Scott was a digital product designer at Involution Studios, and was heavily involved in launching and evolving startups. He has experience in many problem spaces, including Education, Energy, Finance, Social Media, and Digital Publishing.

Table of 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

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

Sensory Substitution, Addition, and Augmentation 122

Gaining Physical Awareness 125

Pulling It All Together 130

Chapter 9 Prototyping 131

Why Prototype? 131

Foundational Tools 132

More Prototyping Tools 148

Pulling It All Together 151

Chapter 10 Selling the Invisible 153

Hammers and Memories 153

Retail 156

Pulling It All Together 159

Chapter 11 Moving Forward 161

We Can 161

Still in the Wild West 162

Go Forth! 164

Index 165