March 8 — July 12, 2024
Afrooz Ghadimi
Jack Irwin
Razielle Samaco
UX/UI Designer: Sketching · Mood board · UI Design · Interaction Design · Prototyping
Google Pixel Watch
Designing a google smartwatch interface for scuba diving
The brief for this school assignment was to design a wearable watch interface for googles platform based on a unique design language which incorporates physical activity and analogue time.
With the recent release of Apples watch ultra our team saw an opportunity to explore the creation of a new google watch product with dive capabilities.
Challenge
Google does not currently offer a native experience for diving sports on their pixel watches.
Outcome
Expand the activity offerings of the google pixel watch and design an interface tailored to the needs of recreational divers.
Our team chose space as our main visual concept. Exploring the unknown and sometimes alien as a central theme.
Concept
Space
After creating the mood board we set out to generate a series of sketches and low-fidliety ideas based on the space theme.
Space Voyage · Jack Irwin
Extraterrestrial · Jack Irwin
Planets · Razielle Samaco
Space · Razielle Samaco
Space · Afrooz Ghadimi
Space · Afrooz Ghadimi
The idea of solar systems and planetary orbits rooted our visual direction moving into the mid-fidelity mockups. Understanding the limited usability of the screen while under water, we envisioned the physical crown playing an important role in navigating different information elements while diving.
The opportunity arose after completing the prototype to speak to scuba divers and get their feedback on the mid-fidelity designs.
We focused on implementing changes to improve readability and information clarity while in dive mode. This included increasing the overall size of elements, updating fonts and switching to a digital clock to display time.
The final high-fidelity mockups utilizes the feedback from potential users and expanded on previous visual language explored in the earlier sketched. The revamped primary information cluster improves visibility of relevant dive details such as time, depth, no deco limit and warning notifications.
It was hard to maintain a balance of readability and aesthetic quality on the small screen. As we continued to work on the project after the initial submission, managing time and scope also became a challenge.
Learnings
This assignment was a fun opportunity to explore UI and interaction design principles in the context of a wearable device. Although this project was conceptual in nature, if we were to do this project again we would make it a priority to speak to divers earlier in the process. This would help fill the gaps in our understanding and allow us to make more informed design decisions earlier in the iteration phase. Understanding the users needs may also reveal new and unexplored opportunities to address potential pain points with existing dive products.
Next Steps
Expand the complications set for pre-dive, active-dive and post-dive states. Begin work on the mobile version of the app with expanded function. Conduct usability testing on updated design, preferably in an underwater environment to simulate a real world use case.