Forerunner 955

Garmin
Project Overview
Our most recent refresh to our flagship running and multi-sport GPS wearable. This is the first Forerunner wearable to feature a touch screen which brings the need to reconsider a number of interactions. A desire to conserve the styling used on the previous generation of Forerunner wearables made the adaptation to touch tricky. In addition, numerous new training and quality of life features were developed to be included in the launch of this product. All beautifully displayed on a limited color MIP display.
My Contributions
The product manager and I worked together to define the scope of new features included in this product. This was done while taking into account competitor products of a similar price point, recent engineering breakthroughs, and requests from our business analysis. All decisions were clearly documented for engineering to reference in the future.

Final research and concepts for new features were brought
Garmin
Product Designer 2
June 2021 - March 2023

together at this stage. Many pivotal features were informed by the research and development of our sports physiology team in Finland with which I have worked closely. Technical requirements along with system hierarchy and menu structures were documented on our intranet for engineering to access in the near future. I also created flows and prototypes to accompany the documentation.

Under my direction, the graphic design team red-lined all screens for software engineering to reference. With limited storage on the product, we were limited to a select set of fonts and graphics. The display is limited to roughly 32 usable colors as well as a 1hz refresh rate. This combination made animations and rich interactions a struggling point.

The Morning Report was a feature wholly under my control where we made beautiful illustrations shine on the screen and provided great value to the user in the morning. The success of this feature has lead it to be included in all new wearable from Garmin.

Hear more about the Morning Report in this Tech Radar article.
Towards the end of our product development timeline we performed Customer Acceptance Testing. For this I developed a test plan, recruited participants, and collected all of the feedback. We send early factory devices out to participants for them to use over a 4 week period where they were to perform tasks each day and report back weekly. All of this feedback was compiled into a presentation shared with stakeholders to determine the readiness of the product to launch.The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.