Noise Smartwatch for Kids | Watch OS
Noise is one of the leading smart wearable and audio brands in India. Since 2014, the brand has expanded to various areas of the market with its premium product quality at an unbeatable price. Noise discovered a gap in the wearable market, that targets the audience below age 13. This provided Noise with the opportunity to design an Indian smartwatch that targets a younger audience, which brings a new layer to parenting, safety, and youth development.
Understanding the mentality & preferences of children
The research was unique, as we were yet to work with a user group this young; 5 to 12 years. Interviewing this age group in detail made us develop different psychological and social insights according to their age, growth, needs, and wants.
How can we create a scalable and simple platform, while also allowing individual users to customize their experience, as per their own requirements?
Your child is never alone with character companions
70% of the children complained about not having friends in the colony or near them physically, leading to them being bored and socially reclusive; having a personified assistive character will make them feel like they have a companion for every task they do in their routine.
A holistic approach to health & fitness
The watch featured various functions to assist in physical tracking and development. These included measuring health vitals, and having a list of sports mainly curated for children, alongside a meditation feature. These were all collected to give a singular Health Behavior Analysis (HBA) percentage, which allowed parents to track and take action on the general fitness of their child.
Independence through action
Children want to be more independent and perform activities by themselves. We designed a daily routine for them to keep track of their activities, alongside positive habit formations through streaks. These streaks created a competitive environment amongst them and resulted in a desire to repeat the activities in question.
Locking & parental control functionality
Parents can fix a daily school time in the app resulting in the watch locking the main menu to reduce distractions for the children at school, or in other environments. In addition, the quick links are accessible to the child for emergency reasons. Children can have access to ‘exam mode’ while the watch is locked for school mode; this way, they can use basic functions for convenience, while not compromising the usability of the app in fringe scenarios.
Utilities and games to entertain, and inform
With meaningful and simple games like tic-tac-toe and Hamster, a child can always stay occupied for small spurs, while acting as a micro engager, as opposed to a distractor. There are many other, more utilitarian features, such as a flashlight and timer, which introduces an element of convenience, and allow children to explore the various possibilities of a wearable device, at a young age.
Design system
We created a scalable platform, where users can customize their own experience. Keeping empathy as our cornerstone, we designed a careful experience so the tech doesn’t exploit a kid, but instead helps in their development. That’s how good design built routines for the new-age Noise users; routines that are intuitive in nature.
Check out the full case study on onething.design.