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 usability and over all experience for Fossil’s next generation hybrid watches.

MY ROLE

UX Designer &
Researcher

YEAR

2017

The problem with the first generation hybrids was that they depend highly on the user’s ability to remember button and feature assignments. While adding smart features to the analog watch was a great addition to a classic watch it was not the most user friendly solution, especially for the user demographics who were used to the capabilities and seamlessness of smart watches.

an amalgam of "Digital" and "Analog" combining physical watch features with digital elements and technology. These watches would thus be encased in the classic styling of a traditional watch with mechanical hands and feature key elements found in touchscreen smartwatches. A digital screen would be powered by the E-ink technology, that would support longer battery life even with an always-on display.

Always-on Display:

Diana would be an always-on display watch that provides dynamic and contextual information for every glance is what we saw as a true hybrid. The watch should be able to provide information without user interaction. E-ink display would help to conserve battery and provide a longer life compared to smart watches.

On The Go:

Diana would be an on-the go watch that displays wellness stats including heart rate, and other fitness metrics. A fully customizable watch that would fit all your styling choices without compromising on the classic appeal.

DIANA

Diana watches, powered by E-ink, combine physical watch features like mechanical hands with digital elements like displays to create a perfect amalgam of analog watches and smart watches.

Fossil’s Advanced Product Development Team worked from Burlingame office in Bay area, California. The team comprised of different smaller teams that focused on different areas of Diana including mechanical design, industrial design, firmware etc.

The User Experience Team focused on researching user needs and behaviors to shape meaningful interactions and experiences for Diana. We, a team of 3 designers, embedded ourselves into the agile process of the larger team and focused on an informed, iterative research and design process.

MY ROLE IN THE TEAM WAS TO…

Establish and Integrate user research into the product development process.
Conduct usability testing sessions and synthesize data into actionable items.
Iterate on designs based on the research learnings.

User Research & Learnings

One of the first tasks the team tackled was to understand user requirements and behaviors around hybrid watches to come up with UX guidelines that would help in the design and iteration of Diana.

The baseline product

During the summer of 2017, the team had the first prototype of Diana. The first prototype had a small e-ink display, placed in the lower half of the watch. We wanted it to undergo large scale usability testing to understand and validate personas, understand product expectations and requirements and to measure performance. These would together help us to come up with a baseline product that could be used compare future evolutions and to formulate UX guidelines for these evolutions.

I conducted about 30 usability testing sessions in the format of in-lab user interviews at the Fossil Headquarters in Richardson, Texas. We recruited users who were from our targeted demographics. This included analog-only watch users and smartwatch users. The formal user testing was proceeded by an in house pilot study with the help of colleagues from extended teams.

Diana being a hybrid watch means, no touchscreen. All the interactions are done through mechanical buttons. The initial prototype of Diana had a single button that could be used to control and access different features. The button had a scroll interaction to navigate through the watch and a click control to select/deselect options. During usability testing the scroll model proved to be inefficient and painful to use.

Be delightful

Button is the first point of user interaction and should be delightful and easy to use. Buttons should promote effortless interactions but restrict ghost interactions. The buttons should equally support actions that are casual as well as that are precise.

Establish Hierarchy

When multiple buttons are present, there should be a clear hierarchy between the buttons and the interaction model should be consistent with the button hierarchy, that is, prominent actions should be allotted to the master control and subsidiary actions to the secondary controls.

Based on the above insights, Diana was remodeled as a three button click only model with a clearly defined button or control hierarchy. Three buttons brought in more controls that could help in faster access of data.

The initial prototype of Diana had a linear informational architecture. The single button meant that a user would have to go through the features one by one to get to the desired feature. This sometimes meant 7 clicks to get to a feature.

Be efficient

Information should be presented such that at any given time, the number of interactions required to access the information should be minimum.

Have shortcuts

Certain features would be used more than others. Users should be provided with a way to decide what information should have quick access.

With the above guidelines, Diana was altered to have a circular informational structure. The bi-directional controls helped to reduce the number of clicks to access a feature to a maximum of 3. By customization, a user can pick and choose what features are to be present in the watch, which would in turn reduce the number of clicks required to find a feature.

A highly beneficial ability that was added after the first round of testing was shortcuts. A user could assign shortcuts to buttons and a simple press and hold would directly open the feature. This helped users to quickly access their preferred features.

Diana version 1 consisted of both interactive and non interactive features, each with different set of controls. However, as the users could not differentiate between different features or information layers, easily got lost and could not get back to the home screen. Even after multiple use, users found it hard to draw a mental model of the structure leading to frustration.

Be consistent

Users are learning from the very first interaction. Design for easy discoverability and minimal learning curves. Design using consistent gestures and interactions. A certain action when applied at any stage should provide similar results.

Be predictable

Design using known interactions and gestures. New interactions should not be introduced without notice or learning opportunities. What users learned from previous interactions should be applicable on the current and future interactions.

Promote recoverability

The user should have the control of the system at anytime. The design should help the user to quickly recover from errors. There should be a way to ‘Undo’ or access the home screen.

We added a click and hold as a universal gesture to navigate back to home page from any screen. This helped users to quickly navigate back and to recover from error.

Diana V 1.0 was crafted and developed in San Francisco. We conducted regular usability test sessions in San Francisco and iteratively refined Diana.

Then we decided to conduct multiple usability testing sessions in Texas. While a lot of the results were similar to the results in San Francisco, one feature in particular raised a red flag. Diana had a weather feature that would display the current temperature, daily high and low at a chooser city, Users could add multiple cities and browse through the weather in these different cities.

This feature tested well in California where the weather in San Francisco was very different from the weather in San Jose. The feature worked great for commuters. However in Texas, where the weather does not change very often from city to city, users found a major requirement to be missing. Chance of rain. Precipitation chance was a highly desirable feature in Texas. Hence the weather feature which was rated highly useful in California was rated as not useful in Texas

Be universal

When designing keep in mind that each user is different. Design should support power user as well as novice user, users with different end goals and priorities, users from different cultural as well as geographic locations.

Be glanceable

The design should take into consideration what the users are doing and the context they are in while interacting with the system. Information should be glanceable and within reach.

With the above guidelines, the designs were iterated to be more contextual, universal and inclusive. We adopted a more universal set of iconography rather than a more tech savy centric iconography, added more context to features, made information more glanceable and incorporated features to ensure universal usage.

A strong trend that we saw during the user testing was users enquiring about what they could change and customize. It was important to note that as a brand, Fossil stood for customization, to provide a wide variety of options for you to find your perfect style, enabling you to build your watch from the scratch. And this was also expected from Diana.

A Feature Kit

While a large set of features are highly desirable, the overall experience can be elevated by allowing users to choose what they want to include and not. Design a fluid process through which users can customize their watch by selecting what features to add, where to place them and the information it should display.

BE ALTERABLE

Design to help users change and re-change the looks and functionalities of the watch whenever required. Have customizable shortcuts, customizable quick views and customizable watch faces .

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.