Draft and evaluate UI

Draft UI

‍

Heuristic Evaluation

Based off of Jakob Nielsen's 10 principles for interaction design‍

1-5 scale (1 not severe - 5 very severe)

#1: Visibility of system status (3.5)
Issues

• No visual display on ring
• Vibration isn’t the best way of communicating different functions
• May be difficult learning curve for the user to understand different vibes

Recommendations

• Uses variation of vibration haptics, different intensities and number of times it vibrates
• Ability for users can customize the vibrations 
  

#2: Match between system and the real world (2)‍

Issues

• Difficulties triggering the voice assistant 
• Drain battery if used frequently or if the microphone is actively listening while turned on

Recommendations

• View Apple’s interface guidelines for products 
• Utilize fidget mechanism as a dial
• Consider adding button or touch sensor to activate microphone when needed
• Integrates with mobile devices voice assistant
• The spinner is easily discovered through fidgeting
  

#3: User control and freedom (3)‍

Issues

• User must be explicitly taught how to exit or undo
• There are no actions the user can perform on the ring

Recommendations

• Perhaps left thump swipe means undo
• Down swipe means undo?
• Emphasis on onboarding
• Extended multi-second tap-hold means exit‍

‍#4: Consistency and standards (5)

Issues

• The user will not know what the vibrations are 
• Learnability is needed

Recommendations

• Tutorial on mobile app
• Learn by doing
• Voice-guided tutorial through speaker?
  

#5: Error prevention (4)

Issues

• Wireless charging dock pole has to be a different size for every ring size
• What if user forgets to charge?
• Loss of ring

Recommendations

• Instead of having a pole use a flat dock to be used for all ring sizes
• Alerts when ring is out of range of phone
• Case for ring
• Vibration and sound alert for low battery
  

#6: Recognition rather than recall (3)

Issues

• Users will have to remember what vibrations mean for different interactions

Recommendations

• Users have to know how to read graphs(?)
• Limit the ring to only having 3 different vibrations
  

#7: Flexibility and efficiency of use (1)

Issues

• Hard to bridge the gap between novice and power user.

Recommendations

• Offload to software, users can easily assign custom interaction gestures.
• Offer different colors and textures for the fidget spinner mechanism, they can be swapped out 
  

#8: Aesthetic and minimalist design (2)

Issues

• Affordances may be hard to comprehend
• Not that unique if so minimalist
• Fitting components into compact design

Recommendations

• Artistic pizazz
• Embellishment
• Make eye-catching
• Create designs of ring around hardware. Hardware first approach
  

#9: Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors (3)

Issues

• User may rage-interact not knowing what their input is doing
• Users used to visual feedback won’t have any

Recommendations

• Phone states the user error in the compatible app 
• Error messages will have a link to a help center if user needs more information and assistants with the problem
• Too many rage-interactions in short time span causes phone notification to enable user to back-out
  

#10: Help and documentation (4)

Issues

• User manuals are complicated and no one looks at them
• Non-visual nature of ring makes onboarding non-negotiable

Recommendations

• Videos?
• Podcast?
• Step-by-step audio tutorial
• Step-by-step app tutorial
• Tutorials
• Help bot