Designing a Wearable Powered by Machine Learning.

Early on in the wearable device boom, a global technology company came to us for help designing the user experience of a new product. But the product wasn’t a wearable device, and the target users weren’t athletes or fashion-conscious tech enthusiasts. The project was a machine-learning development platform that data scientists could use to quickly and efficiently develop models of physical movements. The platform would help make the impending tide of wearable devices more useful for their intended users.

Our role

  • UX Strategy
  • UX Research
  • UX Design
  • Visual Design
  • User Interviews

Powering wearables with enhanced machine learning.

Although the specific product we were designing was a machine learning development platform, the goal of the project was more broad. The bigger picture was facilitating the creation of wearable devices that provide useful feedback to wearers. So, before we could design the system, we needed to answer a few key questions - what is useful feedback? And how do data scientists teach a machine how to provide it?

From data to strategic engineering design.

The first task was to understand how data scientists actually work so that we could design a tool that meets their needs and that could be integrated into their workflows. We conducted in-depth user interviews with scientists and engineers across several wearable companies and academic institutions to uncover needs and pain points. We also conducted in-depth interviews with domain experts - fitness coaches, yoga instructors - to learn about how they analyze physical movements and how technology might help them as trainers.

By keeping human needs - those of athletes, coaches, and data scientists - at the forefront, the final system could be built to address the goals of each stakeholder, using machine learning to analyze data in a specific, useful way. Letting human needs lead the way and allowing technology to follow is the approach that should be used when designing any system involving machine learning or artificial intelligence.

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