From my friends at Ziba...
Ziba hosted a wearable technology panel back in April including Sean Madden Executive Managing Director at Ziba, Roberto Tagliabue Executive Director of Software Design at Jawbone, and Skooks Pong Senior Vice President of Technology at Synapse. Sean Madden wrote a summary and perspective form the panel that discussed how wearable devices will offer practical, novel and fun usefulness but will also be able to influence our behavior in ways good and bad, creating ethical dilemmas for designers. Worth a read.
"For all the attention we’ve given in the past year to wearable devices like Google Glass, Nike FuelBand and Jawbone UP, the focus on hardware and form factor misses the far more thrilling – and perhaps frightening – topic of how wearable devices are going to change who we are as people. Wearables promise to let technology impact us on a more personal level, and as our gadgets become more intimate it’s inevitable that their influence will deepen.
Psychology researchers have been looking into human behavior reinforcement, and the conclusions they’ve reached are startling. The subconscious mechanisms by which a human brain forms habits are no longer a complete mystery, and that understanding has let us start devising tools for altering them. As a result, we’re now at the edge of an era in which human behavior has become a design problem.
Changing the unchangeable
In a 2011 article on feedback loops, Wired editor Thomas Goetz describes how a single “Your Speed” box on the side of a busy road does a better job of slowing down drivers than the most relentless speed trap, and then illustrates this effect with a number of other examples. They point to a kind of revolution in persuasion tactics: We are able to encourage or discourage behaviors once thought unchangeable simply by offering immediate, actionable feedback. Well-designed feedback changes behavior.
Imagine what’s possible when we apply that kind of feedback loop to a broader range of habits. Health-related behaviors, for example. Or even buying behaviors."
Big news for wearable tech in the consumer electronics sector.
Jawbone's BodyMedia acquisition is an important milestone and an indication that the wearable tech industry is starting to take off toward (potentially) broader consumer markets. I say potentially, because it's still very early, we are essentially in the "brick phone" phase and have a lot of proving to do to ensure that wearable tech is not a fad, but rather, a lasting technological movement that helps progress us to the next evolution in technology. That being said, there are a few aspects of this acquisition that are particularly exciting:
Combining data to make new meaning
One area that I think has enormous potential is making meaning out of the data that we collect from these new types of wearables. BodyMedia has put tremendous amount of effort toward developing unique algorithms that combine data in interesting ways to make it more useful and add more value to their customers. And Jawbone Up has a nice start on visualizing that data so that it's meaningful and useful to the user. For example, for the "quantified self" lovers, there's a nice feature that allows you to compare different metrics side-by-side so that you can see trends, patterns and make new meaning out of it such as how your carb intake impacts your sleep quality. I haven't seen anyone else allow you to compare in this way. But that's just scratching the surface.
I think there are also opportunities to combine biometric data with other types of data to help make more useful and delightful correlations. For example, a colleague of mine mentioned his desire to understand what impacts his blood pressure. In that case, why not triangulate other types of data such as combining blood pressure (collected from a wearable device) plus other personal data such as your credit card statement plus publicly available data such as time. Then you can track your coffee purchases and begin to make correlation's between your blood pressure levels and your coffee intake. This is just one example of the exciting new scenarios we can see when we combine the possibilities of new wearable form-factors with different data types. Both Jawbone and BodyMedia are set up to do this.
Creating an open, extensible platform
Right now, we have so many different products that all run on different platforms. As a consumer, I have to buy into each individual platform, install separate apps, run the devices separately, and manage all of these different experiences separately depending on what I want to track and do. For example, I recently evaluated the Nike Fuelband, Fitbit, and Jawbone Up and wore each simultaneously for 6 weeks. Each product had it's own device that I had to buy and wear, individual software/firmware that I had to install and apps that I had to install and run separately. From a device perspective, they all (generally) collected similar data. But I had to use 3 different platforms to get different views to make different meaning out of the data. You can begin to see how cumbersome this was and could be as we continue to create more and more products on different platforms. What we need is to develop a set of standards that allow you to essentially plug in the device and see the data in many different ways based on what your goals are or what you want/need on the same platform.
With this acquisition, Jawbone plans to make the platform available to 3rd party developers to create new applications and experiences based on the data the devices are collecting. Nike just did this with their Accelerator program where they opened up their APIs to developers to create new applications using their Fuel metric. This is the beginning of an entirely new ecosystem of applications that will exist on top of your wearables. And that is a pretty solid indication that wearable tech is here to stay. Now we just need to figure out how to create a set of standards that allows us to develop new types of devices that can easily "plug" into the same platform and, ultimately, the same ecosystem.
Beyond fitness toward lifestyle
Both Jawbone Up and BodyMedia are still very niche. Meaning, they're focused on fitness and health. There are so many other aspects of our lives that can be impacted by the kind of data that they are collecting. I'd like to see us move beyond fitness and think about how the data that's being collected be considered across other areas of our lives. I think Jawbone is set up for this as their product family covers entertainment, with their Jambox speaker, and communication with their bluetooth headset. I'm eager to find out how they will apply BodyMedia's info in other ways and explore other areas of our lives beyond fitness.
For more information, read an article on the acquisition at Fast Company.
I'll be speaking at the Smart Fabrics Conference in San Francisco today, which focuses on:
Software and services -- building the integrated wearable technology ecosystem
The key principles the emerging wearable ecosystem players need to take into account as they chart their path to market together
The role of software and services in developing integrated, compelling and meaningful consumer experiences
A vision for the tremendous opportunity in front of the wearable technology ecosystem and the roles for each of the players, as the vision becomes a reality
"Fighting for human rights is a noble undertaking, but it’s also extremely dangerous in places where that fight isn't about simply arguing over abstractions. Aware of the very real possibility of campaigners being beaten, kidnapped or murdered, Civil Rights Defenders in Stockholm has launched the Natalia Project. Named after Natalia Estemirova, a human rights activist who was abducted and murdered in Chechnya in 2009, it’s based on an electronic bracelet that sends a pre-programmed text alarm if activated or forcibly removed.
The bracelet is a wireless assault alarm system intended to immediately draw attention to any assaults on human rights activists. The idea is that in the event of an assault, the wearer can send an alert or the alert is automatically sent if the bracelet is removed by force.
Civil Rights Defenders is bit hazy on the technology, which is understandable. However, it did reveal that it uses GPS and GSM technology and that the bracelet is programmed with "individual protocols for security." In addition to the bracelets, the Natalia Project also encourages people to sign up using Twitter or Facebook to receive weekly updates on the project as well as becoming part of a global alert network."
Wearable technology is the next new wave of technology, and it’s bound to drive a lot of the innovation in the consumer electronics industry. We can expect to see a lot more watches, glasses, fitness gadgets, and wristbands in the years to come. But bear in mind that we’re in the “brick phone” phase, or version 1.0, of wearable tech.
In these early days, we’re approaching wearables with a traditional CE mentality--it’s all about making a powerful gadget that we can bolt onto our bodies without considering the new aspects of what it means to wear, rather than carry, something. And if we are not careful, we will be on our way to becoming cyborgs: bolting gadgets onto our bodies will distract, disrupt, and disengage us from others, ultimately degrading our human experience.
The real opportunity is for wearable technology to enhance the human experience by seamlessly integrating the technology into the fabric of our lives. I use “fabric” deliberately, not just as a reference to the world of e-textiles but to the ample set of considerations that encompass our lifestyle. As an inventor and designer of wearable technology for the last decade, I think we need to consider several key building blocks to achieve this.
1. Make it beautiful
Until recently, in the technology industry the idea of aesthetic value was often considered secondary and sometimes controversial. Yet fashion and aesthetics are important when you start wearing the product on your body--it becomes a part of our identity and a mode of self-expression; it evokes certain perceptions in others and starts to define us. That is why beauty is essential to wearables.
Our goal should be to create iconic and timeless forms that are beautiful and help us communicate who we are. In my concept, Modwells, the modular sensors that track your biometrics are like jewels that you can attach to your clothing. Misfit Wearables is taking a similar approach. We also need to take into account the context of the situation--something that we would gladly wear at the gym would not fit in at a cocktail party, so finding the right balance between aesthetics, functionality, and context is key.
One way to achieve beauty is to hide the technology, and an emerging breed of flexible and softer materials is making that easier than ever. I have experimented with stretch sensors in Move, my concept garment that helps people achieve the precision of movement required in Pilates by tracking and adjusting their movements. As with Angella Mackey’s Vega biking jacket, the technology is incorporated in a way that transforms the function into the aesthetic.
Striving for invisibility should not be a goal in and of itself. While invisibility might be preferable for clothes that aim at improving you, if the product’s goal is to change how you interact with others, we have to take into account social norms, personal boundaries, and privacy.
2. Make it peripheral
In the era of wearable technology, we are moving away from interacting with the technology; it interacts with us instead. This is an important paradigm shift--the body becomes the interaction platform: the mouse and the screen.
Up until now, in order to interact with our smartphones or Fuel Band, we’ve had to look at them and start the display. With wearable technology, we can do these things more seamlessly by using the peripheral space to create new interaction models. We can also move beyond our face and arms and use our bodies like the GPS shoes by Dominic Wilcox, which use light to indicate where to go. While they still rely on visual cues and could have used haptic feedback to let you know when to turn right or left, I do think they are a step in the right direction (pun intended).
Beyond receiving information, we can also use the periphery to send signals. (See the diagram at the top of this page.) Zip is a garment that ties the gestures we normally use to interact with our clothing with controls. For example, zipping the jacket adjusts the volume of music. What is important when designing these new interaction models is that we do not simply translate old metaphors from the computer era but consider the context, proximity, and social situations in which these interactions will occur.
3. Make it meaningful
Wearing devices that are always tracking our activity produces a huge amount of data. But, as any Big Data expert would tell you, the question is what we do with all that data. Merely displaying the information, however beautifully we do that, misses the chance to influence positive behavior.
Instead of simply displaying your biometric readings like your heart rate, we can nudge positive behaviors right in the moment. Jawbone Up is doing this nicely: It sends a tiny vibration when you have not moved for a while to remind you to get up. I used this concept in Pulse, the ring that tracks your heart rate. By itself, your heart rate doesn’t really mean anything; you need to know what to do with it. Pulse uses color to indicate when to cool down and when to speed up so that you can stay in the optimal heart-rate zone while working out. The other advantage of using color instead of a number is how readable it is. You can get the information in less than a second, which does not disrupt your workout (again, the importance of periphery).
Meaningful products enable us to do something better. They help us achieve better posture in Pilates, or stay within our optimum exercise zone; they connect us to those we love or empower us to be more responsible, healthier, smarter. To achieve this, we must go beyond the fad of just quantifying ourselves. Instead we should use the data to prompt us to act in a way that makes us healthier, stronger, better--a principle of 21st-century design.
What's next?
Today’s wearable technology products are mainly in the fitness space, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Wearable tech will start permeating many other domains, including medical, entertainment, security, financial, and more. The more pervasive it becomes, the more important it is to advocate for products that are beautiful, peripheral, and meaningful. Only then will wearable technology achieve its full potential to enhance our lives, rather than disrupt, disconnect, and distract us.
Continue reading and also published on FastCompany's Co.Design.
Join me in Austin at SXSW where I will be sharing a vision for what’s next in wearable technology. Here’s a hint: wearable technology represents an entire new era of interaction. It has the potential to change our relationship to technology altogether by making it more discreetly, smartly integrated into our lifestyle, and ultimately, giving us superpowers.
With the plethora of trendy new products like, Google Glasses, iWatches, the smartphone as your fitness coach – wearable technology is on the verge of going beyond media buzz to becoming mainstream. In a few years virtually everyone will be wearing some tech piece on their body. The question is: How do we avoid becoming cyborgs and create new wearable technology experiences that make us more human? Continue reading at Artefactgroup.com
Join me Saturday, March 9 2013 @ 11am at the Radisson Town Lake Hotel in Austin, TX. Click here to register.
