I’ve been in the world of design for 14+ years, starting in 2006 doing web design and development. This site has been dedicated to my individual design work up until 2014. As my career has grown, I’ve moved into leading teams, managing, and directing work. While I maintain a Coach/Player mentality and certainly pitch in individual work where needed, I’ve found that this portfolio no longer displayed the type of work I have done and where and how I want to contribute to the world.
So, I’ve created a brand new site! Please visit designbyjohnwayne.com and check out my new portfolio focused on design leadership, vision, strategy, and direction. This site was coded by hand and is completely custom. It showcases my leadership style, projects I’ve lead, and provides a bit more detail.
While this site will continue to exist to showcase past work, the new site will contain updated information. Thanks for visiting!
I have a stack, literally, of “wearables” or fitness tracking devices. Some I use on a daily basis, others I wear only sometimes. I often switch out different fitness trackers depending upon mood or fashion. I’m interested in this space because I see fitness tracking as one of the many ways that technology can help us to live better lives. The promise of these category of devices is that they will tell us, in general, how healthy we are being on a day to day basis. From there either applications or our own brains can begin to infer patterns and then we can try to change some of those patterns for our own betterment. I might see that I’m sleeping really badly on Monday nights and note that I often work extra hours that day, which might be causing me stress. Or I notice that I feel happier when my step count is above 15,000 steps. Tracking our fitness in these sorts of ways can help us to move past the vagueness of “eat better, sleep better” and help us to understand WHY we sleep or eat better, which COULD then lead to behavior changes. But there is still a ways to go.
Wearables Till Now
Up until now wearables has really concentrated on fitness types of devices. Things that you wear on your body (usually a non-dominate wrist) that track your movement over the day. Devices have gotten smarter, smaller, and are now tracking heart-rate, perspiration, etc. People have been pretty excited about these types of devices and have bought in at a decent rate. But, like going to the gym, something happens and people stop wearing the devices. One to three months later that $100+ device is sitting in a drawer somewhere struggling to live on it’s drained battery.
So, I think we can say something isn’t working. Is it comfortability? Durability? Fashion? Having to charge the things too much? Or perhaps we are finding that even though we have the data in front of us, and we know that we should do something to change, in the end change is just too damn hard. Like the salad we feel like we should eat while we are munching down on some fries.
In 2012 I gave a talk at the Midwest UX conference about Living with Wearable Tech. In that talk I spoke about some things companies could do to enable better designs for wearable technology. I said things like:
Make it easy to find, and easy to replace
Make it stay put
Be thoughtful about materials used
Be mindful of fashion and the aversion to looking like a cyborg
Think about daily and long term use
A lot of these things are still important, and some devices are still missing the mark. But, for the most part companies are starting to get things right. Fitness devices are in general pleasant to wear, durable, and while maybe not always fashion forward, at least not completely ugly. But, something is still missing. People are still putting them down, in drawers, so that they are out of sight and out of mind.
Wearables in 2015
Before we dive into all the problems, let’s look at wearable technology as it is today. Wearable tech is really an exploding market segment. Noted especially on the CES show floor this year (2015). There were a lot of companies promising or showing off some kind of wearable technology, and there were some truly interesting things. But also a lot of the same old stuff. Here are some thoughts about what 2015 will see in wearable technology.
Companies Will Explore
Smart belts are coming to auto-adjust to your waist and tell you more about your waistline. The Ring will allow you to control other devices with small motions of your hand/finger; but looks horribly uncomfortable. There are devices to automatically track what you eat, without intervention from you. Headbands to help you understand your own stress level, and perhaps utilize meditation to become more peaceful. There are smart pacifiers, smart clothes, smart rings, even throw-away wearables. But, the biggest category of all is still smart watches.
Smarter Wrists for Everyone
Smart Watches will be seemingly released (or upgraded) from just about every manufacturer of technology this year. The fight is on to control your wrist. Samsung, Motorola, Garmin, Guess, Lenovo, LG, Montblac, Polar, Sony, and yes even Apple all have or will be soon releasing a smart watch. By the looks of it, everyone in America will have a smarter wrist in 2015, and have more ways than ever to get their notifications from their zillion apps. But I predict that sales numbers will be lower than expected and people will quickly tire of notifications on the wrist. The thought of buying that sexy new watch seems awesome, but I doubt millions of people will plunk down their hard earned cash. Further many of the people who do buy them will forget to charge the things, take the watch off, and then never put it back on.
Fashion Will be Taken More Seriously
Misfit is becoming more fashionable with a partnership with Swarovski. Withthings is getting cheaper and more fashionable while also utilizing a standard watch batter. Fitbit is/has been partnering with fashion brands directly. We will see more and more of this as tech companies struggle to make something people will wear more and not toss in a drawer after two months.
Partnerships Will Create Ecosystems
With all these companies releasing more and more wearable technologies, I believe we will also see more partnerships formed to keep customers engaged with products longer. Jawbone and Misfit are both doing a great job keeping their ecosystem open which enables things like turning on the lights as you are waking up. Other companies will follow suite and try to form partnerships between wearables and smart home products.
Where to Go From Here
The biggest question isn’t really what’s going to happen in 2015 though, it’s really what will happen in the next 3-5 years. Clearly consumers are interested in wearable technology, maybe just as the next fashionable thing to have, but interested enough to pluck down a chunk of change ($100 still seems to be the sweat spot). What companies need to consider is not notifications or even plain step counts, but enabling changes to people’s habits. The technology we use and wear on our bodies everyday should ideally fade into the background, only surfacing when needed or desired as a fashion statement. People want technology to help them change, they just don’t really want to put that much effort (or feel like they putting in effort) into the actual change.
Remember, it’s not about the technology at all. It’s about what the technology can do for us. It’s about humans.
I found this draft post from 2013, I’ve decided to publish it now for no other reason but to get it out there. It may not be well worded, or well thought out. But hey, it’s there.
We are a lost generation. We don’t know how to act or behave in the world. We are making it up as we go along and pretending that everything is okay. It’s not.
Frank Chimero wrote that there are not truly “Independent Creators”. He is absolutely correct. He states that creations must be upheld, discussed, and distributed by the public in order to live. That public then becomes the life blood of your own creation. Therefore, when you put a creation out into the world, you are no longer in charge of that creation and no longer an “Independent Creator”.
Louis CK has been heralded recently for claiming that smartphones are making us less empathic and are teaching us that it’s easy to be mean to other people without repercussions.
Other people are been rallying around internet bullying, cybercrime, and the likes. I’m hear to tell you that it’s all connected. We are not alone in creating things, and we are becoming less empathetic. Yes both arguments have nuances that I am subverting, and those should be talked about. But in a general sense both Frank and Louis are right. Technology has enabled a global community, one we have never experienced before. With a community that large it has become easy to avoid the guilt and “bad feeling” of calling someone “fat”. It’s easy to hide behind the masses when you do something against someone else. But it’s just as easy to forget that the masses help carry you and your work. Those same people that you hide behind, and perhaps those that you call fat, allow your work, your creation, to live and breathe in the world. Without them you work would die the moment you set it free. That’s the world we have to face. We are all inextricably connected now. We could go back, but we won’t. That connection gives us so so much, and we don’t want to live without it. But that connection to such a global audience and community comes at a cost as well. We need to see that cost for what it is, and learn how to deal with the consequences. Yes, we will probably create more bullies, but that is just because we give them more places to hide. In the same manner we are able to give more life to creative people who want to put things into the world for the better. We, as a new global community, have a responsibility to both. We have to uphold the greater good, and learn how to put down the evil as best we can. It’s a brave new world out there, but we have the chance to make it better, and better we will make it.
My website has been static html with a WordPress powered blog for the longest time. I loved this approach. It allowed me to create quick loading pages that could be super customized as projects needed. To create a cohesive design I had to create a custom WordPress theme to match my html based website. I also had to develop a custom WordPress plugin that allowed images in my posts to math the gallery style in my website. But, this site never matched my full tastes and intentions. Further it was not mobile-friendly. Boo.
So today I launch a new website. It’s a new year, and a fresh start for me. Rather than spending a lot of time rebuilding everything from the ground up, I instead opted to start with a complete WordPress site and build everything around a theme. As a designer I don’t need to show off my website coding abilities, so I wasn’t worried about using a WordPress theme. But the site did need to adhere to my own design principles, be forward looking if possible, and certainly fit the myriad of screens people now use everyday. So, here it is!
With the new year also comes a new job search for me. I’m looking for a small to medium sized design firm or an awesome product team within a company. I’m approaching 10 years of design experience with a graduate degree, so I’m looking for a mid to senior type of role. I’m a self starter, team player, and well rounded interaction designer. If you think I’d be a good fit within your organization, please contact me so we can chat. I greatly look forward to new challenges in 2015 and I’m ready to hit the ground running within a new team.
Up until now wearables has really concentrated on fitness types of devices. Things that you wear on your body (usually a non-dominate wrist) that track your movement over the day. Devices have gotten smarter, smaller, and are now tracking heart-rate, perspiration, etc. People have been pretty excited about these types of devices and have bought in at a decent rate. But, like going to the gym, something happens and people stop wearing the devices. One to three months later that $100+ device is sitting in a drawer somewhere struggling to live on it’s drained battery.
Smart Watches will be seemingly released (or upgraded) from just about every manufacturer of technology this year. The fight is on to control your wrist. 
Misfit
