3. Wrist First Design
Developing for the Apple Watch
By Derek Walker and Joel Snipes
According to Apple’s website, there is an Apple Watch for everyone. Apple created the most personal device in history, with how an individual would use a device on their wrist in mind first. Mobile-first and wrist-first design for the Apple Watch is all about new functionality, short interactions, and tailoring the experience to the individual.
New Ways to Interact with your Device
The challenges inherent in interacting with the Apple Watch are limited by the dimensions of the human wrist, and as a result, Apple has invented new ways to interact with the device. The most unique input device and innovative interaction paradigm for the Apple Watch is the Digital Crown.
Perhaps the most integral part of the Apple Watch, the Digital Crown allows users to navigate without obstructing the user’s view. You can turn the Digital Crown to zoom in and out of photos or navigate lists and press it like a button to return to the home screen. The skeuomorphic design is not meant to be turned like a traditional watch crown between a finger and your thumb, but instead registers the user gliding his or her finger over the dial. This makes the interaction with the crown feel much more seamless than awkwardly turning a dial.
In addition to the Digital Crown and touch screen, the Apple Watch also senses differing levels of force. This new dimension adds to the user interface and is called Force Touch. Force Touch on the Apple Watch can distinguish between a light tap and a deep press which gives users the ability to trigger access to an array of controls depending on the context. For instance a firm press brings additional controls to the screen for apps such as Music, Messages, and Calendar. According to Apple, this is the “most significant new sensing capability since Multi-Touch.”
Another interesting component of the Apple Watch is the presence of a linear actuator, or Taptic Engine. This gives the user a whole new way of receiving notifications and communicating with other Apple Watch users. Apple claims that the Taptic Engine gives users the feeling of actually being touched or tapped by another human. One interesting facet of the Taptic Engine is being able to send your physical heartbeat to another Apple Watch user via the heart-rate sensor on the back of the case. The intimacy is truly astounding. A whole slew of possibilities exist because of the Taptic Engine. For example, one Apple Watch user could let another user know when he or she has arrived outside.
Just as important as the hardware innovations are the new software design paradigms Apple has created for the watch. Glances display useful short messages that can be navigated with simple swipes on the screen. Users could see information such as the time, weather, their calendar, or navigation and can dismiss them by simply swiping up on the screen. Combined with having Siri on your wrist, which allows for more spontaneity and even quicker access to information, Glances provide brief chewable bites of info for Apple Watch users.
Wrist-first design is all about quick looks and interactions, which Apple has taken advantage of with the Apple Watch. By reworking older apps such as Mail, Messages, and Maps, and designing completely new apps like Activity, Workout, and Camera Remote specifically for the wrist, Apple opens up a whole new way to interact with wearable technology.
Apple Pay and the Apple Watch
Apple Pay provides some interesting examples of wrist first design, that we can expect to see more of in the future. The Apple Watch will be fully supported in the Apple Pay ecosystem allowing the users to make payments without ever taking their phone or wallet out of their pocket. Understanding how a system like Apple Pay works with the watch will provide a lot of the intricate details of how new apps will operate across the phone and watch together.
The Apple Watch user who wants to make payments with Apple Pay will start by creating a 4 digit pin in the Apple Watch app on the phone. The watch will prompt you to put in the pin each time you put on the watch, but you will not have to enter it again unless you take off the watch. Next, you will have to add cards to the watch through the Apple Pay app. Cards associated with your phone are not automatically associated with your card for security reasons. The user will have to re-enter each card that they would like to be able to use on their watch.
Once the app is set up the watch can be used to make purchases even if the user doesn't have their iPhone with them. To make a purchase the button beneath the crown is pressed twice, which brings up the Apple Pay app. Then the user can swipe through their cards to find the one they would like, and holds it up to the terminal. The watch will vibrate and display a message telling the user that the purchase is successful and the purchase is complete.
Going forward with Wrist First Design
The accelerometer and heart-rate monitor are going to provide apps with more data about their users than they have ever had before. The information used properly can allow for great strides in the areas of user experience. For example, if an app detects/senses that you’re working out, it won’t bother you with a notification unrelated to your workout. At the same time, a workout app that sees the user is being particularly sedentary one day can provide a friendly reminder. Context will be key to properly designing a pleasurable experience for Apple Watch users.
However, there are several concerns for the Apple Watch which include battery life, ease of use, pairing it with iPhones and other Apple products, and developing good apps for it. People will not necessarily want another piece of technology to have to charge every night when battery life becomes a problem. It is also going to be interesting to see how well the Apple Watch to iPhone synchronization manages and if it is going to be difficult to pair the different devices.
If a developer is not consciously developing wrist-first, they are likely to fall into a few pitfalls: not designing for short interactions, not developing for the entire watch (taptic feedback and the crown), or not taking advantage of the context it provides. Apple is trying to help developers navigate these issues in their development guidelines, where they encourage the developers to focus on creating lightweight, holistic, and personal applications. However wearables, are still in the early adopter stages and wrist-first design will continue to involve as we move into an age where everyone has a super computer strapped to their wrist.
