Google outlines key points for Glass developers

Google has outlined four key points for prospective Google Glass developers, highlighting the importance of ensuring a timely, seamless experience with as few interruptions as possible.

Speaking at Google’s I/O conference in San Francisco, Timothy Jordan offered some insight on how to develop for the new interactive eyewear gadget.

Jordan, a senior developer advocate for Project Glass, also spoke about Google’s Glass Developer Kit, which will be a development framework for Glass hardware or “Glassware”.

Here are Jordan’s four key points for developers:

Design for Glass

“This is really key and there’s a remarkable amount of depth in here. Because at the top level, you don’t want to take an experience on mobile or on the web and just stamp it out on Glass.”

“It’s not going to work because Glass is fundamentally different. And the one essential thing that you must do is test on Glass.”

“Use Glass in your daily life, add your service and use your service in your daily life. And then you’re really going to know what works and what doesn’t.”

Don’t get in the way

“Getting in the way is not good. Getting in the way takes [the user] out of their life and it’s a barrier between then and what they’re doing, and that’s not what we’re doing with Glass.”

“We want your service to improve their life… You never would want to take precedence over the user’s experience.”

“So you would never want to send them a notification that, if they didn’t respond, would degrade their experience with your service.”

“They should be able to ignore notifications and your service keeps chugging along, giving them what they want when they need it.”

Keep it timely

“Glass is a very ‘now’ device. With your phone you might do stuff over the last week, look over your calendar four days from now. With your laptop you’ve got data on there from the last few months or year.”

“But Glass is really about, what are you doing right now?”

“When you think about that with your service, you want to deliver content to the user that’s important to them at that moment.”

Avoid the unexpected

“This is bad on any platform but it’s particularly bad on Glass when the experience is so intimate to the user they’re wearing your experience.”

“So you really need to respect that relationship and don’t do anything unexpected.”

“Just be honest about the intention of your application – about your Glasswear – and give them preferences to be able to get notifications, maybe during certain times, or they know how many they’re going to get before they sign up.”