LONG LONG AGO, IN 2016…

the Fossil Group took the first step towards changing the world of wearables. Smartwatches were growing more and more popular, but what was clear was that they couldn’t replace the classic look of the watches everybody loved. This was the birth of the hybrid smartwatches that blend classic design with smart connectivity.

This was the beginning of the explorations on hybrid watches, watches that look analog and classic but is smart and connected.

IN 2017, THE ADVANCED PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT TEAM…

at Fossil constantly worked to design and sculpt the next generation watches that weaves advanced technology into classic looking fashionable watches. As part of the APD team, I worked as a User Experience Designer to design, enhance and research on the understanding notifications for Fossil’s next generation hybrid watches.

User Research

The goal of the project was to design the best experience for Diana by not only take into consideration the user needs, aspirations and experience but also the technical, industrial and mechanical constraints of the medium.

With a fair understanding of the technical constraints, our next step was to understand the user needs related to notifications and then specifically to smartwatch notifications. Thus the main goals of the study were

• To understand the current trends and user behaviors on messaging and notifications
  on different devices.

• To study available products and available solutions in the market to understand popular and industry wide notification models.

The overall research process we adopted consisted of three different phases or research methods.

We conducted a survey with the help of recruited users to gather insights on current messaging behavior and notification preferences for phone and watch. The focus was to try and gauge the average number of notifications, average length of a notifications, popular means of messaging etc. The survey consisted of 10 questions that focussed on the same and was circulated through Google Surveys and social media with a targeted demographics.

Literature reviews on academic studies and researches conducted on messaging, notifications and smart watches were studied to get a more in depth understanding of human behaviors related to social communications and notifications. This step also included reviewing user reviews on products and product ratings to understand the current trends and common pain points around watch notification models.

Data gathered from the literature review was used to analyze and compare the data gathered from the survey. Given the time constraints associated with the project we were unable to conduct large in depth studies on notifications. Hence studying the existing studies that were conducted helped to fill in these gaps.

Competitor products including fitness trackers and smart watches were studied to understand how different the UX models used by different products available in the market. The competitive analysis helped to understand the available solutions and established interaction models on existing products. This further helped to gauge user requirements, what users were used to and user expectations.

Needs

Glanceability

Glanceability is one of the key principles that should be considered while designing an always-on-display watch. This means that the essence of the content can be consumed by the user just by a quick glance without having to take any action on it.

Privacy and Always-On Display

Privacy is an important element that should be considered while designing for an always-on-display watch. When notifications are meaningful they might also mean that they are personal. Glanceable info should be presented without compromising privacy.

Customization and Filtering

When designing glanceable interfaces it is not only important to focus on the core information but also on meaningful information. Notifications pushed on to the watch should be meaningful to the user based on the user needs and context. A perspective on How, When and What notifications should be pushed to the watch is important here.

Notification Types

We started to play around with notifications to see what might be the best type of notification that would be apt for Diana. Given its technical and medium related constraints. What information should be passed to the user as part of the notifications? What actions can users do with these information? How much should the watch rely on the mobile phone for the notification?

Based on the type of information passed on and the time to understand it, we classified notifications into three different types.

WHAT SHOULD DIANA SUPPORT?

As we looked at Diana, it was evident that given Diana has a digital display it should be able to support Peek and View notifications on the watch, depending on the user’s choice. Reading an entire text or replying (acting on) a text was not expected from Diana with the current size of the screen. Diana can push to a Read type notification with a larger display size .

Notification History

From the study we learned that support for multiple messages rather than the latest message is more of an expected feature or is becoming a standardized feature for multi-functional watches. Split or one line messaging is a frequently used style of messaging. 50% of the survey responders self reported that majority of their messages closely respond to split messaging style. This brings in a need to support multiple messages.

However notification history can mean two different things.

COMPLETE HISTORY

A complete history would mean access to all the past conversations or notifications related to an entity. Given the technical and medium - based short comings of a smart watch and hybrid watches, this was not a desired feature. A complete history was deemed more appropriate for devices like phone, tablets etc.

UNREAD HISTORY

An unread history would mean access to all unread notifications at any given time. This was a highly desirable feature in smartwatches. First generation hybrid watches only offered real time notifications, i.e, notifying users as notifications came in. However with the evolution of hybrid, it was now possible to support multiple messages and hence have all unread notifications.

Based on this we explored different type of notification dashboard that would support multiple notifications.

Notification Timeout

An always on display device would mean that a notification without a timeout would be displayed on the watch all the time. Thus it was important to look into user privacy here. Allowing customization ability for users to decide how notifications are displayed on the watch would ensure that users are given the option and could make an informed choice.

When a new notification is received, the notification would overtake the screen. However unattended notification may get in the way of other interactions or information. If our models are based on always on display homepage content this might be interrupting. Hence we had to think about a notification counter and a notification icon that could present this information to the user, when needed. However, a 2016 study[1] shows that notifications with vibrate or sound alerts are attended within 3 minutes at an average and silent notifications may be attended within 7 minutes at an average. Survey respondents self reported that they attend to notifications whenever they arrive. 

An electronic paper screen can sometimes ‘blink’, briefly flicker while updating the image displayed. This is a consequence of how e-paper creates pictures and text and also depends on the type of update a signage integrator will select for their e-sign. Turning every pixel from white to black and then back to white helps normalize the contrast of the pixels and prevents ghosting, which is why the screen will sometimes ‘blink’ when loading a new image.

Thus to prevent old images and letters from being displayed in the background, we had to wipe the screen from time to time. Even though this was a quick process, it was possible that this could be annoying if it is present frequently.

Preventing ghosting was an absolute requirement but we had to choose when the wipes happen carefully. Few locations to add wipe was when the user moves away from one screen to the other, when the user cleared the screen.

Once we placed the refreshes strategically, only very few users noticed it, often times only when specifically asked during the user testing.

Initial Notifications Frameworks

The next step we did was to explore a wide variety of notification models not just for the one sub-eyed watch but also for multi sub-eyed watches.

Product Launch

The product underwent several cycles of iterations and major changes like a bigger display was added. The addition of a bigger display significantly impacted how notifications worked on the watch. It was now possible to provide a much more detailed notification.

IN 2019, GOOGLE ACQUIRED…

the portion of Fossil’s Advanced Product Development team that was behind Diana , along with the Diana Tech.

IN FALL 2019, FOSSIL PREVIEWED AND LAUNCHED..

Diana as Fossil Hybrid HR series in different customizable designs, mainly built on some of its existing watch series including Fossil Collider and Fossil Charter.

Fossil’s industry-leading Hybrid HR line launches with always-on display, heart rate tracking and an astounding 2+ weeks of battery life on a single charge—all beautifully packaged in the classic styling of a traditional watch.

Hybrid HR makes it easy to see the information you want, when you want it—no waking, no swiping. Thanks to a new power-efficient, always-on display, notifications like incoming text messages, weather updates, and wellness stats like heart rate and step count are accessible at a glance.

The new Hybrid HR will retail at a starting price point of $195 and is available for purchase today on fossil.com and in select Fossil retail stores globally.