Design
Wearable technology is popular today. People are enthusiastic for developing smart watch Apps. However, if a smart watch App gets too complicated or “fancy”, it will defeat the purpose of “wearable”. So, the design of GameHub is fairly simple. The front page shows six most commonly used gaming platforms, including Steam, Uplay, Origin, Battle.net, Xbox, and PlayStation. When the user click on a platform, the App will show messages that the user received from that platform.
GameHub also has quick response feature. When the user receives a friend request or gaming invitation, she can simply click “accept” or “ignore”. If she chooses “accept”, the App will automatically send a message responding to the requester, giving the user time to log in to the platform to manage the request. If the user agrees to let GameHub access APIs from these six platform, GameHub can also provide “one-click purchase” button below a message about a big sale.
The watch App illustrates the idea of minimalist design with no extra interfaces than basic notification and quick response feature. However, the user can view more detailed information on her phone. The smart phone App provides more information, such as details of the game on sale.
Prototype
The prototype is made of paper. There are two paper devices: Apple Watch and iPhone.
Screens for the watch is arranged as tiles. My initial idea is to fix the watch and move the paper below it, but it turned out to be very difficult. So, I decided to fix the paper and move the watch. With camera following the watch, the transition between pages is good.
There are two pages where the content is longer than the screen (PlayStation messages on watch App and platform select bar on the phone App’s bottom). To demonstrate scrolling effect on these two pages, I made longer pieces of paper with a handle that I can use to move the paper.
Feedback
Likes
- Drawing watch screens on a large piece of paper works well. Compared with sliding the watch through a long piece of paper, this method helps tester to quickly locate the next screen.
- Idea is great. “I’m not a gamer, but if I am, I would wonder why this App hasn’t existed already.” said one participant.
- Demonstration video works well, especially the captions that tells what the current page does. Also, my participants like the music.
- Drawing is great. One participant mentioned that she saw the logo of the game “Civilization” and realized that it was identical to the actual logo!
Need Improvement
- The design is hard to achieve because gaming platforms would probably not willing to offer third-party access. As far as we know, only Steam has open APIs that allows developers to access user’s information.
- The scrolling bar on the bottom of the smart phone App does not seem intuitive. One participant mentioned that she prefers a more clear layout of the six options rather than scrolling horizontally.
Overall, this design is innovative and has some potential in the future. The prototype also works well. There are some concerns to the design and layout that needs adjustments, but the design as a whole is very effective.