The MICA (“meek-uh”) smart bracelet was one of the first wearables designed for women. It was a stylish untethered bracelet with built-in 3G. MICA was released before the Apple Watch. It’s features included texting, calendaring, and searching yelp for nearby restaurants or other types of venues, all on a discrete touch display located on the inside wrist of a beautiful bracelet.

In my role as User Experience lead, I was both the team lead and a contributing individual. As the leader of this project, I held the vision and kept marching through the ups and downs, cheerleading my team along the way. I created a UX strategy based on ethnographic research and user interviews. I lead the design of the UI for the device and responsive companion website, helping to bring our partner’s brand to the device. I also played the role of scrum master for the software team and coordinated with the hardware team to meet deadlines and release the product on time. As well as, helping handle the partnerships across the device. I lead or designed and helped test every feature, and supported development and launch, including training retail associates. 

Challenges

Collaborating between fashion and tech industries and working with new and cutting edge technologies presented many obstacles. The goal was to create a wearable for women who love beautiful design and believe technology is there to support and enhance their lives. The design team worked extremely closely with research and engineering teams to iterate on the design and technical feasibility, collaborate effectively with our white label partners, and maintain quality while sticking as closely to our timeline as possible.

Approach

We spent a significant amount of time learning about our users, conducting interviews, and mapping out journeys to identify opportunities to deliver them something valuable. Through this research, I was able to see an opportunity to help with the decision-making paralysis our users experienced during and after busy workdays. I created an easy way to pick a restaurant, grocery store, or anything else they might need to find quickly. I mapped the information architecture within Yelp, created a prioritized version for our users and platform, and designed a simplified interaction model. I pitched the app to Yelp, who then came on as a partner to the product.

Outcome

MICA was an experiment: in its design with Opening Ceremony, its retail channel through Barneys New York, and also in its 3G capabilities, making it one of the first truly untethered wearable devices. While never intended to be a widely-released product, MICA was influential to future wearables. It played a role in Intel’s strategy to explore the space of fashion and technology. However, post-launch user testing hinted at a common trend across most wearables: users found more value in the novelty than the actual product’s features resulting in a very short lifespan for such devices (see the term “drawered”). 

Skills Used:

Managed
User Research
User Testing
Front-end Development

Led
Persona Development
User Journeys
Concept Design
Service Diagrams
Feature Strategy & Scope
Interaction & Visual Design

Contributed to
Product Management
Partnership Relations
Development Schedule