One Ring to Rule Them All: An Empirical Understanding of Day-to-Day Smartring Usage Through In-Situ Diary Study

Abstract

Smartrings have potential to extend our ubiquitous control through their always available and finger-worn location, as well as their quick and subtle interactions. As such, smartrings have gained popularity in research and in commercial usage; however, they often concentrate on a singular or novel aspect of a smartring’s potential. While with any emerging technology the focus on these individual components is important, there is a lack of broader empirical understanding regarding a user’s intentions for smartring usage. Thus in this work, we investigate concrete and reported smartring usage scenarios throughout the daily lives of participants. During a two-week in-situ diary study (N = 14), utilizing a mock smartring, we provide an initial understanding of the potential tasks, daily activities, connected devices, and interactions for which augmentation with a smartring was desired. We further highlight patterns of imagined smartring use found by our participants. Finally, we provide and discuss guidelines, grounded through our found knowledge, to inform research and development towards the design of future smartrings.

In Summary

To better understand how a smartring can be utilized within our daily lives we performed a two week diary study. We found a range of potential interaction patterns and suggest key guidelines towards the creation and adoption of future smartring devices.

Key Findings

• Smartrings were proposed for multitasking when a primary task was taking place and a secondary task required quick and immediate control
• Smartrings were seen as beneficial by participants for encumbered use and when hands were dirty
• Smartrings provided potential for control of unreachable devices
• We propose the following guidelines for future smartrings grounded from the results of our work
  • Accommodate and enable effective interaction throughout a variety of daily usage scenarios and tasks
  • Enable touch, mid-air gestures, and proximal interaction (the combination of these three interaction modalities allows for 94% of proposed interactions to take place)
  • Prioritize socially acceptable interactions
  • Vibrotactile feedback was preferred over other output modalities
  • Foster intuitive cross-device and cross-application connections
  • Comfortable, waterproof, robust for daily usage and designed akin to a typical non-smartring

In More Detail

Please review our full paper (linked above) for study details, methodologies, and complete results.