TempoWatch: A Wearable Music Control Interface for Dance Instructors

Abstract

We present TempoWatch, a wearable smartwatch-based interface designed to allow dance instructors to control music playback and tempo directly on their wrist via touch gestures using a circular watch display. Dance instructors have unique requirements with respect to music playback in their classes, in particular the ability to stay in position while controlling the playback, and to change speed via time-stretching. However, common stereo decks and mobile music player apps do not support these requirements well. We present the design and architecture of our system, and a qualitative evaluation performed with 9 semi-professional instructors in their own dance classes. Dance instructors were involved in this project from the very beginning to match the system and interface design to its prospective use cases. Results show that instructors are able to use TempoWatch productively after only a short learning phase.