Wearable

Previously called Android Wear, Wear OS is a smart watch platform from Google that serves watches of multiple shapes, sizes, and use cases. Among its top features at the time I worked on the platform were actionable notifications, fitness tracking, and messaging.

As a senior interaction designer on the Wear OS UX team, I worked on several projects. I led UX for Wear OS support for users of iOS devices, when previously the watch had only worked when paired to an Android device. I designed and oversaw multiple iterations of the setup flow and companion app experience from releases 1.1 through 2.0. I established principles and techniques for on-watch onboarding and user education for features such as wrist gestures enabling one-handed use.

I also led the design of features that enabled watches to be standalone from a phone by designing the flows, patterns, and guidelines for on-watch permissions and authentication. Each of these projects involved collaborating with visual and motion designers, engineers, product managers, developer relations teams, and the larger Android system team.

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eBay’s app for the Pebble smart watch allowed eBay users to browse through the latest items matching their interests via the eBay feed, and watch an item so they can bid on it or buy it later.

As the design lead for eBay’s wearable products, I worked with a very small, passionate team to launch the initial eBay experience on the Pebble smart watch. I collaborated directly with the Pebble team and, in addition to designing the full end-to-end experience as well as creating all the design assets, I also pitched in to do QA, marketing and even a little product management. One of the most fun parts of this project was determining the best way to render an item image in bitmap for the watch (which, even at the low resolution, was still a helpful way for users to know they were looking at the right type of item).

© eBay Inc.

eBay’s app for the Samsung Gear smartwatch was designed to let eBay users quickly increase a bid or place a bid from a notification received on their watch, along with the ability to pass information back and forth with the eBay app on their phone.

As the design lead for eBay’s wearable products, I worked directly with a very small team to identify primary use cases eBay could support for the introduction of the Samsung Gear line. Using notifications as a baseline, I designed the architecture of the app, flows, and the design of the companion application for the mobile phone.

Notifications were designed to take advantage of the full-color Gear screen while also keeping in mind at-a-glance readability and the most critical of actions (such as increasing a bid on an outbid notification). We also translated the eBay look-and-feel to its first use on a small smart watch screen. This project also called for quick iteration whenever we discovered new constraints from the hardware or OS side.

Read the original press release.

© eBay Inc.