Trending Time - data-driven watch face development for Android Wear
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The document outlines the development of a content-centric watch face for Android Wear that showcases trending topics from Twitter, emphasizing user engagement through utility and microinteractions. It describes the technical architecture, including data syncing and power management strategies, while addressing drawbacks such as the watch face's read-only nature. The roadmap proposes enhancements for user-defined regions and a tag cloud display, maintaining a focus on glanceability.
Trending Time - data-driven watch face development for Android Wear
- 1. Trending Time See what’s hot on Twitter - on your wrist! A primer on data-driven watch face development for Android Wear
- 2. Project goals ● Build a content-centric watch face ● Use best practices, but steer slightly off- course from conventions in Google’s sample app ● No user OAuth - just install, activate & enjoy!
- 3. A funny thing happened... ● Watch Face API launched December 2014 ● Seemingly everyone built one ● Not many data-driven projects ● I wanted to do a community tutorial ● I suck at art
- 4. Tons of amazing visualizations...
- 5. ...but content is what I’m about
- 6. A utility delivering utility ● Surfaces top trends ● High entertainment value ● Usually hilarious, often informative, sometimes helpful
- 7. This is where wearables rock ● Microinteractions: <= 3-second sessions ● Stay in the know without leaving the moment ● Not bothered by constant notification pelting
- 8. Variation on a theme ● The core element of designing watch faces is the creative expression of time
- 10. Variation on a theme ● With Trending Time, the timekeeping function takes a backseat to the watch being a portable stage for quick, relevant information
- 11. One line & you’re done WatchFaceStyle.Builder(this) .setShowSystemUiTime(true) ... .build();
- 12. Account for the peek card .setCardPeekMode(WatchFaceStyle.PEEK_MODE_SHORT)
- 13. Available canvas real estate
- 16. How is a watch face made? ● If you said… ○ “It’s like building a live wallpaper!” ○ “It’s like building a game!” ○ “It’s like building an animation loop!”
- 18. Under the hood: two apps ● All cloudtalk happens on the phone ○ Background service calls Twitter’s API ○ AlarmManager schedules hourly invocations ○ Updated trending topics stored in a DataMap ● Data auto-syncs to watch over Bluetooth ○ If devices lose pairing, data is buffered & sent when connectivity is restored
- 19. ● Wearable service listens for changes ○ Content persisted in SharedPreferences ○ (Will eventually migrate to a BroadcastReceiver) ● Redraws only when screen is active ○ Invalidate display in onPropertiesChanged event Under the hood: two apps
- 20. Usage 1. Launch mobile app 2. Tap “Start updater” 3. Close mobile app 4. Select “Trending Time” watch face
- 21. The engineering trifecta ● Performant ○ No need for FPS stress ○ Avoids interval- or tick-based loops ● Scalable ○ Proxy handler minimizes API calls; preserves quota ● Battery-friendly ○ Diverts from AsyncTask-based timer pattern ○ Same impact in interactive mode & ambient mode
- 22. Drawbacks ● Watch faces aren’t interactive ○ A service, not an activity ○ Read-only relay ● Let the user drill-down into actual tweets ○ Trends selected on the watch handled on the phone by Twitter’s app or Chrome
- 23. Roadmap: UI goodies ● Topics presented as a tag cloud while maintaining glanceable ethos ● User-defined trending regions ● Contextual inputs
- 26. Shameless product plug @jasonsalas google.com/+JasonSalas Designing & Developing for Google Glass