Echo is a Apple watch application that helps find people or items in the nearby vicinity.
Deliverables
watchOS app
Skills and Responsibility
UX & UI Design, Brand Identity, User testing
Tools and Software
Sketch, Invision, Adobe CC, Principle
the challenge
At present their are different finder apps in the market that can be placed in two different categories - location based and/ or items specific.
In both of the cases , they help provide direction for finding items that are in far off distances. What happens when people/ objects are in near vicinity?
The challenge here was to create an app that focusses on finding things that are nearby by using whole array of interactions including sensations to create a worthwhile experience for the user.
User Journey
After user research it became apparent that most of the finder apps in the market have limitations. Consider this - what happens when you are in a crowded place and trying to find your friend? The GPS based apps can provide exact location but it is where you are too! A map for directions is not very helpful.
Consider another situation - you have lost your phone in your house. Maybe it is in your garage or under a mattress from where you cannot hear the ringer. How do you find it? Won't it be an awesome experience if your iwatch starts pulsating faster the closer you get to it? Based on such and many other user experiences, the following stories where created.
USERFLOW
A hierarchical navigation is well suited for this app to provide a navigable list of options available to perform search. When users tap an item in a hierarchy, a new screen appears that displays details about that item. With vertical page-based navigation, users can also navigate quickly between detail views for different rows using the Digital Crown or by swiping vertically on the detail view.
The two most important things considered here were:
Focussing on the main content for the watch as the watchOS app complements iPhone app, not mimic it. Including too many pages of content makes navigation time-consuming and confusing for the user.
Second designing the app for quick and convenient interactions by avoiding creating hierarchies deeper than 2-3 levels.
WIREFRAMEs
Next, I proceeded to create screen blueprints, with the purpose of arranging elements to best accomplish the user tasks.
Branding
Through branding the aim was to create and express a unique brand identity by selecting appropriate fonts, colors, and images/ animations. Since this branding was done for a iwatch app - enough branding was provided to give people the context in of the app, but not become
a distraction. Click here to see the complete branding guideline document.
User Testing
User tests were conducted really early in the prototyping process. This helped find the best solution and reduced the number of cycles to finalize the designs. Click here to see the invision prototype.