Jawbone UP is a wearable technology powered by an mobile application which tracks your steps, distance, calories burned, inactive and active workouts, as well as tracking your sleep patterns. The system consists of a sleek wristband device, and an iPhone application. The wristband itself is small with one button and an audio port. The iPhone application shows total number of steps and sleep, team information, a feed of your friend’s activity, challenges, and basic profile information. Plugging the wristband device into the headphone port of your iPhone allows you to sync your logged activity and view it in a couple of ways. It could be argued that the overall goal of Jawbone UP is to help make people more aware of their daily activities, concerning physical activity as well as sleep, so that habits might be exposed and changed over time.

Why Did I Buy One?

I am very interested in wearable and fitness technology. Jawbone UP is the first device that is fashion forward enough to wear every single day, which constantly tracks my movement and sleep patterns. I purchased the device in order to track my daily habits and see where improvements could be made. Tracking my sleep patterns and visualizing the information was also very appealing as I have always been curious about how I sleep (as I’m a very “deep” sleeper).

Summary

Overall, the UP is quite delightful and good at it’s stated goals. Switching from wearing no forms of jewelry (rarely even a watch) to consistently wearing the device every single day was easy. The device is fashionable without bringing too much attention to itself, and it easily fits in to my overall style and aesthetics. The iPhone application however has many problems. Over the course of 10 days I’ve encountered a number of design and software flaws with the application.

Interaction Design

Jawbone UP Home Screen

The overall design of the iPhone application could be said to be simple and fairly easy to use. First time use or Out Of Box experience was pleasant and gave me a clear sense of what to do within the application. While I’m usually a fan of design which does not require tutorials, designs which sync hardware and software are still a bit new, so some basic tutorials could be useful to a myriad of users. I also find syncing the device to work quite well, thought the tappable buttons seem to be too small and I find myself missing them on the first try. Syncing can also be an issue if the device isn’t fully plugged in and pushed completely into the audio port. To be fair the Square Card Reader has some similar problems.

While most of the application is straightforward and easy to use, I’ve come across a number of problems with the design. While some of these issues are easily fixed usability issues, others are frustrating to use on a daily basis.

Jawbone UP Sleep Activity

• No understanding that you need to rotate the phone back into portrait view
• No way to dive deeper into details of the timeline
• Feed isn’t intuitive and doesn’t mean much to anyone
• Why would anyone add to their feed manually when this device is all about the automatic?
• Why is my profile and feed only showing my sleeping activity? Why not all activity?
• Poor quality scrolling
• Tapping on Sleep doesn’t bring up the sleep timeline, but rather takes me to the last synced timeline.
• A 24 hour day in the timeline does not fit with my understandings of a day, if you know when I sleep and wake, you know when my ‘day’ starts and ends.
• Activity Indicator and vibration alert can not seem to tell when I’m standing and working but not moving beyond shifting weight a bit.

Industrial Design

Jawbone UP with lost cap

The UP device looks fantastic, and I’ve actually been complemented on the fashion of the device. It fits into my overall wardrobe and style seamlessly. Wearing the device is comfortable and I’ve gotten to a point where it feels natural. While the material of the device feels nice, it often get’s caught in cuffs of jackets and shirts. Further, the audio port cap comes off too easily resulting in a lost cap after just 8 days of use.

Missed Opportunities

While the Jawbone UP device is very new to the market, and the overall market of wearable computing is in it’s infancy, I think Jawbone missed several compelling opportunities with the UP device.

• Telling me how to actually improve my sleep.
• Vibrating the bracelet until I actually get up and move around (or at least more than once)
• Automatic snooze of sleep timer.
• No social graph to recommend people to be in my team.
• Nap mode, especially given that it knows my sleeping patterns.
• Not able to add notes about particular sleep or activity patterns to help me see the bigger overall picture of my health. This could work much like the meals option and notes.
• Should the device be smart enough to go into Sleep mode by itself?

Overall Thoughts

In summary, I love my Jawbone UP. It provides great data on my overall activity, especially sleep patterns. The UP is comfortable and fashionable enough to wear everyday. The only time I take mine off is to shower, but with the device being water and sweat resistance, that isn’t even necessary. I find myself syncing the device 3-4 times per day to see how I’m doing. While the device has some issues, it’s missed two nights of sleep data, and the application has quite a few design problems, I think Jawbone has put forth a great piece of useful and fashionable wearable technology.

Give-A-Crit allows photographers to upload images and get serious critique from professional photographers. Through video recordings and on-the-fly editing tools, photographers can engage in honest feedback and critique with each other.

Sign up to be notified when it launches in 2012.

Problem

Artists and creatives need critique to thrive and produce their best work. As digital photography has exploded in the last decade, hundreds of thousands of people have taken up photography. These new photographers turned to flickr and other sites for feedback and critique. However, text based comments don’t provide for a serious and honest critique. They lack context, technical information, and natural conversation.

Solution

Give-A-Crit seeks to address this problem through 4 major design principles; Show and Tell, Respond, Choose, and Quality.

Show and Tell
Video critiques coupled with on-the- fly edits enable professionals to give quality, honest critiques.

Respond
Photographers can watch any critique and can respond to critiques of their own photographs.

Choose
Photographers can request specific critics for each photograph they submit for critique.

Quality
Critics are of the highest quality to ensure professional, honest, and serious critique

Thesis Poster

Below you will find my thesis (or capstone) poster from my master’s program. You can find more information about the project via my blog.

I’m offering the following:

• 6-9 months of mentorship
• Review and critique of design work
• Help understanding field
• Help understanding graduate school
• Advice of any kind
• Review, critique, and help with portfolio and resume

I’m looking to mentor any student currently enrolled in a graduate program in the fields listed above who posses the following qualities.

• 1st or 2nd year student
• English speaking
• Ability to listen to blunt, upfront critique
• Desire to work in the field (not looking to get into a phd program)
• Enjoys design beyond research (I love research as well, but I want you to love design also)
• Sense of humor
• Wants to be active in the design field
• a ‘go getter’

I’m based in San Francisco, but you can be based anywhere. I will mostly be able to mentor through email, IM, phone calls, and video calls. If you are interested, please send me an email directly explaining why you want to be mentored (can be brief).

Some of the above photographs represent some of my best work to date (I think). I would love to hear what you think. Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Warning, this post contains many large images. Some are beautiful, some are not.

Ethel and I start are pilgrimage to San Francisco

All through Illinois, violent storms ragged around us

As storms passed throughout the Midwest, they left massive floods across many states.

I briefly passed through the eastern tip of Arkansas on my way towards Memphis.

Drove across several bridges, which always freaks me out a little

I visited the historic Sun Records while I was briefly in Memphis, TN

My dog Ethel wasn't much of a companion as she slept for most of the 6 day trip

Passed through Arkansas again, and then; big beautiful skies in eastern texas

I slept in the largest bed I've ever seen while in eastern Texas

Lots of great rocky scenery in western Texas

Lots of wind turbines in western Texas

I drove across vast stretches of highway under a beautiful sunset

Stopped briefly in Roswell, New Mexico and visited the UFO Museum

Towards western New Mexico I started seeing some mountains in the background

Lots of trains passed as I drove through the plateaus of Arizona

While visiting the Grand Canyons, I got hit with a large snow storm

The weather cleared up for about 30 minutes, which was enough for me to see the vast beauty of the Grand Canyons

Once the snow storm cleared up, the sky presented me with some rainbows

Made it into California, such a beautiful state.

Ethel and I celebrate as we crossed into San Francisco!

It was quite a journey, as I traveled nearly 3,000 miles across the United States with all my possessions in tow, and everything that I knew behind me.

Spread the love, if you have tips to share leave them in the comments.

Projects, Stories, and Examples

Have a good story about failure.

Have a project to talk about in detail.

Prepare your capstone elevator pitch.

It’s ok to talk about the thermostat project.

Have an elevator pitch for your capstone.

Have an example of some design documentation.

You might be asked to show a task flow or wireframe flow, be prepared.

You might be asked to show some usability test results.

Know Yourself

Know your process.

Know your design philosophy.

• 7 themes of design
• user centered design
• how do your position yourself within the field?
• might be a good idea to weave project examples into your answers

Understand what you want from your future.

Before the Interview

Talk to Jeremy Podany!

• he can be a private outside party
• he can help you negotiate salaries and benefits
• he will help!

Understand that a UI Designer is not the same as a UX Designer.

It really helps to research your interviewer when possible.

It’s ok to ask about the dress code for your interview.

It can help to know some basic visual design principles.

Get your resume critiqued by many people.

During the Interview

Build rapport with your interviewer.

• change your perspective
• remember that you will be peers and colleagues
• try to find some common interests
• ask questions
• it’s ok to throw out some jokes
• try not to be nervous
• think of an interview more as a conversation

Take notes!

You will be exhausted.

It’s ok to ask for water during the interview.

Show that you are willing to learn.

to design a product, service, or artifact which is intended for use two or more years from the present.

Example 1
My main project for the summer was to future Firefox Home Tab.

Example 2
We would like to hire you to future the iTunes service.

Context

As Interaction Designers, we are often charged with envisioning the future of a product, service, or artifact. At IU’s HCID program, we are trained to design for the present and for the future. It’s easy to talk about the present, as most people can think about 6 months to a year out. However, talking about the future of a design is more of a challenge. Sometimes you would be designing for 2-3 years in the future, sometimes even further. Talking about the future in this way becomes wordy and lengthy. So, we all just started using a ‘new’ verb tense of the word future. This has enabled us to talk more vaguely about design possibilities and prompted us to be more creative. We use this tense so much that it has become quite common place.

I’m hoping that bringing this tense into industry, we, as designers, can more easily talk about the future of things. Although I’m not promoting everyday use of the word, as I’m considering it industry specific jargon, I do think that by using it more in this tense, we can help drive our creative imaginations.

Thoughts, reactions?

In kindergarten, in the US at least, we had show and tell, at least my school did. Well, maybe it was first or second grade, I can’t remember. Each day we would have a student bring in something. This artifact was usually from around the house, and parents usually helped out, again from what I remember. Students would bring this artifact to the front of the class and “show” it. They would tell the class what the artifact was, it’s purpose, perhaps it’s personal history, etc. From there, other students might ask questions about the artifact, or discuss what the artifact means to them. At times the teacher would interject with learning opportunities. Wikipedia refers to this activity as a chance for students to learn public speaking. However, I think it’s also about being aware of the world around you and connectin to that world. Further, it provides opportunity for other children to see new artifacts, and (just as important) to discuss those artifacts and their relationship to them.

Show and Tell in Interviews

As I’ve been interviewing this past week for a full time job, I’ve been reflecting quite a lot. One thing that has hit me is how much, despite all that I know, I keep trying to tell when I really need to show. Instead of showing some images of my process and walking through a project, I tended to ‘tell’ about my process and just show the final outcome. While the final outcome is important, it’s more important to show how you got there. What methods were used, what assumptions made, what research was conducted, what processes were in place, and where did things fail and succeed. Show, show, show, and then tell as you show.

Show and Tell in Documentation

As practioners of user experience, I think we also fall into the ‘tell’ instead of ‘show’ trap. One of the top artifacts we seem to produce (going on some assumptions here) is documentation. We produce design specs that are 60 or more pages in length. They likely have some pretty pretty pictures in them, but are very wordy and lenghty. And this makes sense, considering our higher education system. Wireframes and mockups fail at showing an experience. User flows and diagrams might start to get at this, but still fall short. These artifacts still ‘tell’ the experience, as they are accompanied by explanatory text, instead of ‘showing’ the experience.

As a field, I think we need to take lessons from our kindergarten classes. We need to show more and tell less. One way in which we can start showing more and telling less is through prototypes. Prototypes allow us to show an experience to clients and users rather than telling and explaining. Our world is complex, and our designs are often complex as well, by showing instead of telling perhaps we can push our field further and focus more on human beings.

Image: Kindergarten class by chesirekat
Image: Wireframe Walkthrough by carriejeberhardt