Nick Watch

UX & Game designer

Made as part of Beta Studio

2021-2022

Nickelodeon's smartwatch offers a variety of unique gamified experiences, encouraging kids to enjoy their imagination, explore their physical surroundings, and interact with each other.

NickWatch has been honored with the prestigious 2024 Red Dot Award for Product Design in the "Babies and Children" category.

“The games prioritize real-world interaction and leverage gesture and voice”

From the judges' reasons

CHALLENGE

Creating an engaging and constructive gaming experience tailored for children aged 6-9, promoting healthy screen habits.

*The challenge was initiated by Teague, who conceptualized the idea and conducted preliminary research.

SOLUTION

NickWatch offers features that enhance playtime by sparking imagination and physical activity, encouraging kids to explore and interact. It includes tools for assigning sounds to gestures and modulating voices, enriching storytelling and roleplay.

*My contribution:  As one of the only two designers, I had the privilege of participating in every stage of developing the product's gaming experience. This included ideation, concept creation, art and animation design, tech artwork in Unity, and executing the user testing phase.

watch body language states

The gyroscope inside the watch allows is detecting the hand's movement, resulting in various outputs like sound, vibration, or visual effects. This makes the watch a great tool for creating interesting new interactions.

01

SMART WATCH GAMING EXPERIENCES

Game 01

Karate!

Break random surprising objects by using hand movements!

Game 02

Balance!

Tilt your watch to balance the objects for as long as possible

More WatchGames:

Game 03

Shake!

Jellyfish crawl on the screen. Shake the watch to send them flying around on a disco floor.

Game 04

Walk With Gary

In this pedometer-based game, you walk a certain distance and stop at activity markers every few steps

Game 05

Ninja School

Raphael runs in a tunnel, with his rotation angle and jumps controlled by tilting the watch or jumping with it.

Game 06

Tunnel Runner

Repeat the action movement Master Splinter demonstrates from inside the watch.

Game 07

Jump!

By jumping quickly and high, you help the character gain momentum until the trampoline jump is powerful enough to reach space.

02

PROMPTS EXPIRIENCES

Children create their own unique experiences when they play, and our Prompts experiences provide the tools to do so. With a general framework, kids can develop their own play rules and imaginative worlds.

*User testing results revealed that children were more focused on attempting to execute commands from the watch rather than on whether the watch measured their successes and failures.

Game 08

Poses!

The game prompts you with poses to enact within a specific time frame, offering an infinite loop of funny or bizarre poses.

More Prompts experiences:

Game 09

Ask & Shake

ask a question and shake the watch to unveil the fortune held by the crystal ball.

Game 10

Story Words

Craft your tale using random words. The game introduces new words, inspiring you to keep creating, writing, or painting.

Game 11

Dance!

Lights and sounds shift randomly based on your movement. Dancing adds layers of sounds and unravels the scene further.

Game 12

Patrick Says

It's a Simon Says variation with Patrick issuing random actions. You never know what he'll say next!
 

03

THE DIAL

Celebrating its circular shape, the NickWatch utilizes a dial interaction to navigate its apps and contents.

"The user interface was designed as a circle, which was only possible because the OS was completely custom-built"

From the judges' reasons for the Red Dot Award 2024. 

 
Children use touch-and-drag interaction to move the dial both clockwise and counterclockwise. As selections increase, they stack more densely towards the top center of the screen for larger content sets.

04

USEABILITY & PLAY TEST

Given the unprecedented and distinct nature of this gaming experience, we initiated product testing from the outset, allowing our findings to guide us forward.

22+

More than 22 official playtests were conducted, letting kids play freely or with our guidance, individually or with friends, in the kid's homes or in our office.

32+

During these playtests more than 32 kids from all genders, aged 5-10, played the product unmediated.

05

THE TEAM

The NickWatch team was small but highly talented. We worked together very hard to create the best game experiences for the watch.

Team meeting during COVID-19

Karate! Game sketch

Analyzing a playtest results

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