My initial thoughts of how the main feature of the app would work
I started by putting down my thoughts on how my product would work. This version of the app, it is based around a user using a smart watch. Once the app is downloaded onto the smart watch and they have created an account with the service, the user would select "Learn & Practice to interact with the putting analysis feature of the app. This is the main attribute of the device and will help golfer understand their stroke better by breaking down the stroke into measurable components such as pace or length of stroke. The user while wearing the watch would make a putting stroke, the app would then register the motion and display it on the device.
These are just some of the initial issues I have thought of when creating this user flow. I am going to create a few more for the onboarding process, the mobile device and rework the watch flow.
One of the things I realised when planning the user flow is that it didn’t make sense for the watch to be the main focus for the whole app, i.e. all the features that I want to include to be operated from the watch. Firstly, the screen for the watch is very small and it would be hard to design all the different features. My app will display a lot of information and I will need to utilise data visualisation to make it easier for users to understand the data obtained. Screen size will limit the amount of information that I can display on the device at one time which has a negative effect on the user experience, not to mention navigating the app to other areas. It makes more sense that most of the heavy data content and features be housed on the mobile device like Trackman and DeWiz.
After a few rethinks, this is what the onboarding process will look like when a user installs the all onto a phone or tablet. They will follow a simple illustrative/ animated slide deck that will give them an indication of all the features do on the platform.
Once the user has installed the mobile app they will only be able to use the smartwatch once the device is connected to the phone. The watch is only used to capture data from movement made while the user is swinging the putter on analysis, coaching or mimic mode. This will require pairing the device every time the user navigates to each mode. I can think of a few negatives for this process, however, this may be subject to change with a bit more discussion and research. Once the device is ready then the watch will give audio feedback to indicate that the user can swing. This is done on other devices such as Trackman and makes sense to implement this into my product as well because the user will be unable to see the screen on the watch or mobile. Therefore a visual cue will be ineffective.