Designing for Wearables: The Integration of Fashion and Functionality

Designing a new interface for the CoveIOT smartwatch was a major challenge due to certain spatial constraints. It’s not just about fashion but also about a part of revolutionizing the future of smartwatches. To achieve this, we need to consider a unique, attractive and interesting interface that demonstrates how this new product can perform better than its predecessors.

We conducted three highly productive discovery workshops that were instrumental in driving our project forward. These workshops involved in-depth discussions with stakeholders about their requirements and the latest trends they wished to explore. Through persona mapping and knowledge sharing on smartwatch hardware, we developed a robust user interface structure. We also held comprehensive Feature Requirement Document (FRD) tutorials and created Concept Mood board for each requirement from clients, ensuring that we were on track to deliver the best possible outcomes.

After identifying the key areas of focus and requirements for building a successful smart watch system, we established a design direction that would serve as the foundation for all interfaces. Throughout the design process, we continually referred to this approach to ensure that we were meeting our goals.

Glance, not focus on screens

• No smartwatch should ever command the attention, especially the eyesight, of a user for more than a few seconds at a time. Spending longer erodes any advantage over a smartphone.

Interact once, display many time

• The smartwatch interface should primarily provide displays of information and prompts for action rather than providing rich interactive elements, meaning they will show lots of information that is passively consumed.

Speed over accuracy

• The Interface should be flexible, fun, in-the-moment companions, which means they should make lots of ignorable suggestions rather than waiting to make a few suggestions that it deems perfectly right, as current predictive services do.

Pass the hallucination test

• Smartwatch use can be perceived as novel behavior, but it can’t present like Bluetooth headsets, which make it impossible to know who is on the phone and who is screaming at an imaginary friend on the street. Now, the interfaces: voice, gesture, and contextual response.