SUUNTO

Suunto creates physical and digital solutions to track, analyze, and share your every adventure. Each watch in the portfolio provides functionalities based on an individual’s goals and active lifestyle. The Suunto 3 was designed for individuals who engage in activities with daily fitness goals in mind.

Challenge

Design and implement the hero watch face for the new Suunto 3 that aligns with the user goals and new industrial design.

ROLE

I was the sole UX/UI designer on this project. I conducted the research, designed the UI and developed the watch face in HTML/CSS during my first months at the company.

RESearch

User surveys and data analytics were used to understand what was valued in our current watch face options and how we could improve.

With a variety of analog and digital watch faces available in the current portfolio, I started the research by running data analysis on watch face system events. From this I was able to determine specific user trends when selecting watch faces. The top two watch faces were digital and in third place was the only analog watch face option with numerical labels for each hour. From this, we could conclude users desired a watch face that could tell them the exact time without guess work. This led us to create a new digital watch face. With user surveys, we were able to determine which data values were important to our targeted watch user. Out of the insights we provided the user, we found steps, calories, and bodily resources as the data values with the highest interest. Lastly, we learned that the most demanded feature of a watch face was numerical seconds. Not only was it useful for the user to see the numerical value for general time, but it also helped individuals such as healthcare workers measure time in medical cases as well.

Design

How can a watch face benefit an individual’s day-to-day? How can we improve from our current watch face offerings? Understanding the targeted consumer of the new Suunto 3, it was important to design a watch face that would assist the user in reaching their fitness goals. The initial designs were intended to inform the user of their current status whether it be by offering more data or by gamifying their activity levels. However after both technical and user research, the initial designs were not ideal. Technically, we were unable to successfully support rendering rotating text and the readability was affected with the amount of components on screen. Users appreciated the accessibility to the data they found most valuable, however, they did not want it to be on display for others to see during the day.

Narrowing down the most valuable insights, we created a switchable view that allowed a user to have a glimpse of their daily well-being, and with a tap of a button, they were able to see the exact value of each insight. Lastly, based on user feedback, we created a digital clock with seconds making this watch face the first watch face with digital seconds in our current offerings.

skills

User research, UX/UI design, HTML/CSS

results

Initially this watch face was only offered on the new Suunto 3. Majority of users did not switch away from the watch face and valued the versatility of two views for one watch face. When the watch face was launched to all watches in the portfolio, it quickly jumped within the top three watch faces used in devices when excluding the hero watch faces [the watch face that is defaulted upon first use].