Designing a child-friendly kids smartwatch from the ground up
Creating a new kids smartwatch system that accommodates the needs of Pacewear’s younger target user segment.
In spring 2018, Pacewear planned to develop a new kid smartwatch to expand the product line. I participated in the whole project starting from the research of children to UI/UX design of the watch system and the Pacewear kid smartwatch app.
My Role
User Research
Sketching
UI/UX Design
Visual Design
Branding
Year
2018
Our Goals
To create an easy-to-use smartwatch for children's daily use, and to design an appealing device with simple, efficient, and adorable user interfaces.
Consistency
The primary users of this smartwatch are children, however their parents can also use it to connect with them through the smartwatch app. Therefore, it needs to also have a mature visual style that is consistent with the Pacewear brand.
Design based on the research data
Before starting to design the system, we teamed up with UX researchers to interview smartwatch users including children and their parents, as well as analyzed related products on the market. The research data and an official report helped us identify the pain points need to be addressed and create further design opportunities.
Kids Smart Watches Design
In this system, three key design guidelines are emphasized based on children's physical and psychological features.
Uncomplicated Interaction
Children normally have less access to digital products compared to adults, which makes some interaction logics more difficult for them to grasp. We kept the interaction design as simple and intuitive as we could.
Attractive Visual Style
Children are more attracted by bright colors and simple shapes, and boys and girls have different preferences about colors and styles. We focus on creating an attractive style that can fit for both genders.
Child-friendly
We used large font and button sizes, and improved the usability of different types of icon by reducing abstract symbols. Our design approach focuses on making the features easy to understand and use.
Major UI
The kids smartwatches have simple functions that can satisfy daily use. Features include messaging, phone calls, time tools, and steps calculator, etc.
Watchfaces Design
In order to satisfy children's high demand for using different watch faces on different occasions, or showing their unique watch faces to their peers, we designed so many watch faces in our system fitting for boys and girls' different needs.
Headshot Design
Headshots are designed to be used in the contact lists in both the smartwatch and the app. I was in charge of designing all the headshots to differentiate the family members. Our marketing department helped us get the permission of cooperating with a famous IP in China - QQ Family, so we had the opportunity to use their characters in our system.
App Design
The app was developed for parents to connect with their children. Some functions include informing their child’s location, contacting their child through messaging, or phone calls.
We designed this app to be adaptable for both mature and young target users. We made sure each design element served this purpose.
Deliver in iOS/Android
In order to deliver design materials to developers, I set strict guidelines for the pixels and grids for different platforms. By working extensively with developers I gained experience in documentation and delivering design files.
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