The Android Wear Design Sprint Experience
Though a Design Engineer by profession, there are a very few design challenges that I have found more interesting than the Android Wear Design Sprint Experience @ WTM15. Taking up the challenge with other Women Techmakers, in the process networking and looking at things from other's perspective were key take-aways from this design challenge.The entire experience of designing a wear was introduced very beautifully to us. The picture of colleagues at a coffee table busy looking into their phones got etched into my mind. That's the scene we see at so many places these days. It's the most awkward in an elevator when people find it difficult to smile and prefer unlocking their phone to look into the menu instead of getting to know the other person. Yes, we are all beneficiaries of technology, but I would say technology has taken a toll on us to some extent.
I liked the idea of getting notifications on my watch which would just allow me to take an action on it or leave it. This reminded me of the phones that existed about decade ago, where we could either leave a text message or make a call. Let's not even get into what our phone can do for us today. Designing for the wear was a great experience. Notifications had to be crisp and short. I would hate reading a paragraph of instruction or notification on my wear. This was one aspect that we needed to bear in mind while taking up the challenge.
The intent of the design sprint was to make us experience the idea of talking to our wearable and taking actions based on what it has to offer us. A few key characteristics of any wearable device are it launches automatically(you cannot expect to unlock your watch to get your notification), it is glance-able(you cannot read an email on the wear but get a notification that you've received a mail), suggests and demands(a continuous accept-reject cycle) and zero or low interaction(Ideally, a tap to accept and a swipe to reject).
Diving into the details, there are five prime stages of the Design Sprint.
1. Understand : Understanding involves two key areas. One, the challenge in itself and two, the user. Understanding the challenge : To get to any solution, we need a problem at hand. And here's where the design challenge comes to play. The design challenge tells us our intent for the sprint. "Build
Understanding the user : Before any design, it's essential we put ourselves into the user's shoes. Identify personas of those, most likely to use your app. Having an insight on what they would need and expect, is essential from a design perspective. It's recommended that we dive deep and list down the probable location, time, activities, devices and sensors that the wear device would have of the personas identified. A great metric that will help us understand is a graph of user value vs technical complexity. Having a good balance between the two would be a great bet.
2. Diverge : It's necessary that we brainstorm into a variety of solutions that we could offer to the user and pick the best one for grabs. Do not get into the "how" details of the solution. Let's put our thoughts on the "what" aspect of the solution leaving the implementation to be done after the design.
3. Decide : Once we have the list of solutions that the application could offer for the wear, it's not very difficult to pick the best one to deliver. Pick up one solution that we can deep dive into for looking into the design nitty-gritties.
4. Prototype : No great product has ever evolved without a good prototype. Invest time in thinking about a few key moments that your application would offer. Key moments are the kinds of features that our app has and a few that will set it apart. Once the key moments are identified, we could navigate through its depth and look to design each screen flow that you would like in our app.
5. Validate : Show it to our stake holders, present it to them and get feedback of the various prospective user perspectives.
The entire activity was done in about two hours. Eight teams demonstrated various services for the wear based on identified personas. The time boxing meant that we would think how a task could be done in such less time, but eventually would complete each chunk of the task well on time. The learnings were plenty but a few I could pick out were team-work, listening to others' perspectives, collectively arriving at a good feasible solution and most importantly, network.
Some more wisdom by the women techmaker leaders...
Shibani Sanan -Director of Engineering, Google
Being self aware and breaking stereotypes is the key! You're not alone!Journey of hardwork,perseverance, dedication, passion and intution.
Follow your dreams.
Don't underestimate yourself.
Speak up and let people know that you want to move ahead!
Grab opportunities as they come instead of waiting for validations.
Try a little bit more everytime.
Don't try to be perfect at everything! Just be best and good enough at what you do. Enjoy and stay motivated!
Find the passion at work.
What keeps you motivated?
Have a successful and rewarding career.
Focus on what matters!
Save time on travel.
Support at home + Motivation at work = Fulfilling life
Don't try to solve every problem. Focus on what matters! Become more efficient at work.
Have a role model and be a role model to someone.
Have a mentor, coach and sponsor!
Mentor - Close to you, the same level, helps and guides you.
Coach - Makes you think deep into yourself. Makes you find your own answers. Makes you think of a solution for yourself showing you the path.
Sponsor - A senior executive who is going to look out for you. They think of you to put their hand up for you, in your absence.
Take a leap of faith..YOU CAN!
It's very difficult to change, but it's important to change.
Take disruptions that come by and look to overcome the tide!
Never imitate anyone.
Domain knowledge is so crucial!
Spend more time on planning and design...Coding comes much later.
Team and technology is important!
I am where I am because of the people around me.
Sell your ideas to people who can sell it further!
Design - Another crucial area in computer science in addition to programming!
Vidya Laxman
Don't wait for permission.Ask for it. And just say 'yes'.
Your career is your responsibility.
Articulate your goals.
Strengthen your strengths.
Just say "no".
No, your work does not speak for itself.
Guys are your friends.
Network, network and network.
You can lead without a title.
Pavithra Kanakarajan, Product Manager, Google
You share other's shoes.You speak multiple languages - Customer, Technology and Business.
You wish to download your food.
You ask a lot of questions.
You make mistakes.
The day ended with us getting loads of goodies which included a pen drive and a cardboard tool to use the cardboard app and appreciate the world of 3D among many others!
