The Watch On My Phone: What Time Means To Us.

Published in

UX in India

5 min readApr 21, 2015

Everyday I check the time more than a dozen times — with excitement, boredom, anticipation, anxiety, sadness and joy. About a year ago, my watch stopped working and I got accustomed to using my phone as my watch. My timekeeping experience looked a little something like this.

My phone gives me the time, the same way a parking ticket dispenser gives me a ticket at the push of a button. But here’s the thing, I don’t carry around the dispenser everywhere I go, it is not loaded with information about me and my life and it’s safe to assume the dispenser doesn’t know anything about me. My phone on the other hand knows more about me than I do.

Smart watches take these wonderful features from your phone and put them on a tiny space on our wrist. But when the primary feature of a quick time check moved from the watch to mobile devices, it didn’t do much else. Being one of the most valuable things to a human being, time has a different meaning to all of us. On a regular day, 8:32am on a weekday is not just 8:32am, it is the time where if I’m not out the door already, I probably need to run to catch my train or I will be late for work. May 20th is the day I get to see my sister after almost a year and tomorrow at 3:00pm is the meeting I have been stressing out about all week. My device probably already knows most of that. It spits some of it out at me with templated notifications and emails I have to dig up, and doesn’t mention the rest of it.

What would it be like if our devices had a more personalized way of communicating time with us?

My phone doesn’t make me feel much.

In his article, ‘Look and feel and feel’, Jason Fried cleverly points out the importance of the emotional affect that apps can have on people.

“It’s not the buttons, it’s not the animations, it’s not the interface or visual design. It’s not the colors, it’s not the font, it’s not the transitions. It’s how using the apps make me feel before, during, and after” -Jason Fried

This got me thinking about my phone as a whole and I realized, my phone doesn’t make me feel much. Even though it knows so much about me, every time I tap that home button, I feel like I am swiping a badge to get into a building, and every app that I open is just one of a countless number of never-ending rooms in that building. I have to figure out which room I want to go to and why, go do my task and walk myself out the front door.

I wish my phone had a friendly gatekeeper, someone who gives me a quick, personalized update every time I tap him on the shoulder (check the time). Maybe someone with Dwight Schrute’s dedication, April Ludgate’s dark humor, Chris Traeger’s enthusiasm and Gary Walsh’s loyalty.

That brings me to the lock screen, which is probably one of the most viewed screens on a mobile device, where you see that same photo a hundred times a day until you might get tired and change it. It’s a great place to communicate time with context and meaning. It could be a place of information, memories, a voice and a way for the devices to feel more unique and personalized to the user. Jason Fried concludes his article with some really great design questions -

“What kind of behavior can we encourage? What kind of moments can we create for people? What do people anticipate before they use something? How does it leave them feeling when they’re done?”

Here are some quick sketches of how, based on the time, the lock screen can give you more than just the time.

Urgency

My device knows when I leave for work, how fast I walk and what time my train arrives. I wish a quick glance at the lock screen would show me my current status with respect to the train so I don’t miss it or get there super early (which happens all the time)

Reassurance

My device knows when I want to wake up. When I wake up in the middle of the night, instead of the rude awakening of the brightest screen, I wish my device would gently tell me if I can go back to sleep.

Delight

Of all the information on my phone, photos tend to elicit the most raw, personal reactions — surprise, happiness, affection, desire, excitement, gratitude, pride, sadness etc. I wish my phone would re-surface old photos to address new events to make me reminisce and cherish.

Information

I wish my phone would give me more context and ‘look and feel’ of the appointments in my life. A quick glance at the information I need to get to the destination on time is beyond helpful.

and Reminders!

Technically, my dear dear cat is all the alarm I need. However, since my phone has a gazillion photos of him that I never see again, I wish it would resurface them just for fun.