Designing a User-Centered Music Experience for the Smartwatch

Sammanfattning: With a rapid growth in smartwatch and smartwatch audio technologies, there is a lack of knowledge regarding user needs for smartwatch audio experiences and how those needs can be satisfied through user-centered design. Previous smartwatch user behavior studies suggest that audio app usage is not a primary use case for the smartwatch. However, audio applications are increasingly incorporated into smartwatches, which leads to the question of the apps’ purpose, validity, overlooked contexts and use cases. This thesis aims to understand what kind of audio experience(s) a user-centered design process might generate for the smartwatch. The design process generated insights from smartwatch users of audio applications, that were used as design guidelines for Context Awareness, Micro-interactions, and Device Ecosystem. The resulting prototype HeartBeats considers Context Awareness with heart rate music recommendations, Micro-interactions with one-handed song skipping and Quickplay music, and Device Ecosystem with speaker access and phone battery support.