Crest
DURATION 4 months
PLATFORM Diving Watch
An innovative high-class scuba diving watch is suitable for divers to control sea-relevant information while diving. This product can broadly ameliorate human suffering and death rate.
A variety of vital information needed to be visible on the circle interface, such as rate of Oxygen, PPO2, MOD etc. Our first challenge was to understand the meaning of the technical term. Next, we had to know the importance of diving information. In different situations, when will divers need a reminder, what diving information do divers need in emergency status, how could a diving watch help divers keep away from suffering etc.
Understand technical terms and information needed
Knowing the priority of information needed in different situations is essential to building a great information architecture in such a small interface. For instance, while diving, what index could help them monitor and keep them safe. Should a diving watch predict any potentially dangerous situation and send an alert?
As to the visual aspect, invisible vision is a thing to take seriously. Because the visibility will decrease gradually due to the lack of light undersea.
Simplified Complex Information into 4cm Circle Interface
The Challenge
The Approach
User Interviews with Divers
- Information Needs
- Dive Watch Value
- Concerns / Difficulties under the sea
In user interviews, via asking participants about their information needs and difficulties from experience, some insights were gained:
1. Urgent information requirements ( OTU, PPO2, MOD, NDL, CNS, ATM, diving time...)
2. Three main situations need to be considered: before diving, while diving, and after diving.
3. Divers hope to integrate a diving watch with a general watch to increase dive watch value.
4. Unawareness of the body, equipment, and environmental conditions (out-of-air situation, Nitrogen Narcosis).
5. Rely on the personal experience/feeling to adjust the speed, which sometimes causes them in danger.
Apply Bright Color to Emphasize the Information
In order to solve the problem of visibility, we conducted design by combining color psychology and reading undersea color-related articles. That is, we adopted bright colors such as yellow and red to highlight the most important information in every mode. Because water absorbs different wavelengths of light to different degrees. The longest wavelengths, with the lowest energy, are absorbed first. Red is the first to be absorbed, followed by yellow.
Apply Double Tap/Knocking Gesture
Under the sea, it's hard for divers to interact with the diving watch in the usual way with the equipment. Due to this issue, we design simple gestures for divers to maneuver the interface undersea conveniently. After finding related articles and user interviews, we concluded that a double-tap gesture would best allow divers to swipe the screen quickly and without any difficulties.
Independently Work in UI & UX Design
PROCESS
identify a problem
Define
1
4
Wireframe
alleviate conversation gaps with clients
Ideate
think of solutions to problem
2
Style
propose two distinctive design layout
5
Functional Map
think thoroughly towards overall app design
3
Mockup
represent the structure, elements in a static way
6
I partnered with the creative director to disclose insights and translate concepts into features that address customer behaviors and motivations.
Customer Insights & Ideation
I created a wireframe to share website vision, functional map and content strategy. Those facilitated clients to evangelize ideas, gain alignment and drive decision making.
Experience Strategy & Vision
I designed independently and closely collaborated with PM partners to translate product features for each platform context. Besides, I negotiated with the front-end engineer with a fair amount of details to perfect the website.
Oversight & Coordination
I executed functional maps and wireframes. Besides, I evangelized customer goals and balanced business goals. I prioritized and negotiated features for launch and beyond.
Design Execution & Validation
MY ROLE
Functional Map
Take the insights from user interviews and background research and list out all functional page to condense the conversation gap with clients and coworkers.
Wireframe
With one accord, wireframe is an indispensable approach. I used a wireframe to condense the conversation bridge with coworkers and clients, and naturally the meeting process became more efficient and smooth. Besides, I could organize my thoughts first to get rid of impossible tactics.
 Designing two kinds of styles based on the information architecture and prioritized information. |  Conducting data visualization in diving mode - before diving, diving, after diving. |  Planning free diving mode and bottom timer mode with before diving and diving status. |
|---|---|---|
 Planning setting page layout and considering the manipulation of input. |  Planning watch mode layout - digital mode and analog mode. |
Style
Design two styles for the scuba diving watch.
Both adopt bright and colorful elements to emphasize diving information.
The different mode has their representative color helps users to distinguish them easily undersea.
Besides, to be more innovative, I design out of frame is what I considered in layout design.
STYLE 1
STYLE 2
The final decision is Style 2 because solid and big color shapes stand out. Solid color shapes are also more possible to highlight the key indicators undersea compared to the Style 1.
Mockup
Combining wireframe with style 2 allows clients to scale chiefly for testing, or display for their developers.
Watch Mode
Scuba Mode
Apena Mode
Log Mode
Setting Mode
Bottom Timer
What I've learned
In the process, the fair amount of technical terms, special interface format and loss of visibility gave me a huge challenge. However, my team overcame it by interviewing users and doing background research to know users' needs. For instance, I learned the prioritized information while diving and the information needed before, during and after diving, especially in emergency situations. In addition, we created a distinctive style and interface layout design, which achieved information requirements and visual effects. This project broadened my vision towards interface and experience design since this product specification was new for me. Even though scuba diving was a challenging task, I learned a lot and gained insights. We won praise from clients because our design was out of the traditional frame and met the user's needs and satisfaction.
