10 Apple Watch design tips to be found after actual combat

The value of today's article is worth 10 theoretical articles. The authors ' team summed up 10 todolist techniques for the Apple Watch adaptation of their own software, all from the actual combat process, each of which is worth learning >>>

After the release of Apple Watch, our team immediately realized that the new platform would be a wonderful combination of our todoist. As a device that is always attached to the user's wrist, Apple watch allows us to instantly access the content of the information.

With all the exciting possibilities, great design challenges follow. We start from the beginning, and we explore the three main ideas of the design subject around watch:

Light weight

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Personal

Like everyone else, we were only able to test our app in the simulator provided by Xcode because no actual equipment was available at the time. The simulator naturally demonstrates the UI and the process plan, but it is clear to us that "experience design" is not possible without testing in real-world devices.

We need to know how frustrating it is to have an inappropriate functional design that causes the user to maintain a 15-second wrist lift. We need to know which features and information are really needed in the real situation of the day, and we need to know how to organize the information in order to truly "watch".

In this article, we will share for you is through the actual equipment to use the test, we got what sentiment, but also how to rethink the original design plan.

　　1. Simulator cannot replace actual equipment test

The Xcode simulator is a good starting point and a tool that must be used in the development process, but you must know that there are some key things that the simulator cannot provide.

First of all, whether the iphone or the watch, in the real world we are using a single hand or both hands to manipulate them. Interacting with a Device Emulator on a Mac screen via a mouse or trackpad is completely another feeling, and you can't really experience the product, or the design experience.

Second, watch is a wrist device, and you have to lift your wrist to get information or to interact with it. Maintaining a wrist-lift posture does not require a long time to cause fatigue, and the interaction processes you envision in your mind, restored and validated in the simulator that you consider "very brief", once placed on the watch, are not necessarily as lightweight.

Furthermore, watch has its own unique interactive mechanism, including the digital crown, Force touch and the first-screen app layout designed entirely for watch screens, and so on. After using these features on a real device, we have a clearer understanding and start thinking about how to seamlessly integrate these interactions into our products.

　　2. Watch is not a mini iphone, design thinking must be independent

In order to fit todoist in the right way into watch, we have been asking ourselves: "What is the core value of a wrist device?" How can the watch version of todoist reflect these core values? What are the features that users really need on the watch, in addition to their unique interface forms? "by thinking about these questions, we at least want to understand the important point, It's not just that you can't simply copy the iphone version of the UI framework to watch, sometimes even the most basic functional architecture. The core features of a slightly more complex version of App,watch are likely to be quite different from those on the iphone.

Ultimately, we remove all the functionality involved in complex interactive processes, providing users with information that is closely related to today or the current moment.

For any part of the app that needs to be done, we'll have to rethink whether the interaction pattern is simple and fast enough. If not, we will continue to iterate and validate until we feel it in place.

Apple Watch has so much uniqueness compared to other platforms, trying to find and understand them in practice, and then think about them and iterate over their own product scenarios.

　　3. Glance design to really do "a glimpse can get"

The glance view is one of the unique interface patterns of watch, and the user slides through the dial interface to quickly present brief and important information about the app. Todoist's glance view gives users an idea of how much remains to be done and the specifics of a recent event.

Our original design can actually present this information, but by using the actual equipment, we find that the content is too readable or too bad, can completely change the template, more full use of screen space, so that information more quickly access, without users to carefully identify the text. The larger number of items to be processed can make attention more focused, and new logos can help users quickly identify the current glance.

For the Glance view, the millisecond difference can be perceived as a result of actual use.

　　4. App main interface is interactive core

Glance is the quickest way for users to get information from the app, followed by the app itself. After actually using watch, we realized that the internal app's requirements for interactive process shortcuts were more stringent than we thought, and if we needed more than a few clicks, we'd be tempted to take the iphone instead – keep the wrist posture for a few seconds before you had the urge. So the importance of the app's main interface is more important than what we've previously understood, and you have to focus on the most important information and operations as much as possible, instead of providing a navigation list for the user to dig up layer by layer, as the iphone is used to.

In the original version, we were reluctant to discard anything, the weight of each function is the same, the result is a hierarchical navigation list placed in the main interface. After that, we also tried to put the "add things" feature that was considered more important at the top.

It's weird. Although "add" is one of the main features of the iphone version, it is not on the watch. The primary goal of users on watch is to get information rather than create content. In order for the user to achieve the primary goal in the app main interface, we reconstructed the layout, presenting the "Today" button and the information in it more prominently, and the number of tasks remaining is very eye-catching, effectively differentiating it from other minor information and functions. The user's current account and point information are placed at the top, while more minor features such as inboxes, items, etc. are moved down on the watch.

　　5. Force Touch is useful to use

Force Touch, press the gesture of the screen to call out the context menu related to the current interface. After the actual experience, we realize that we can provide some "related" minor functions in this way in todoist, while not consuming the valuable space that the default is used to show the most important information and functions.

Ultimately we decided to use the Force Touch to call out the "add things" feature mentioned earlier to make it still available, but not as important as it was before. The user can call this function anywhere in the app by pressing it, because the motivation for the new item may be at any point, and we don't want the user to navigate back to the main interface to operate.

　　6. Compromise is unavoidable, to control priority

Minimal screen size and a short human-computer interaction time limit will force you to prioritize information and functionality.

In the original version, we designed a simple list of things, and the user clicked on one of the items to call out the relevant action. We've been exploring a little bit about such a small interaction process to figure out what the most important thing in the chain is – to try to complete the presentation, or to sacrifice part of the content in exchange for a quicker way to interact. We believe that, compared with the incomplete content, One extra step is really the most restless. Think of those who use todoist to make a shopping list, often need to tick off a number of items, if each time you have to click into the lower interface to do the operation and then return to the list, it is a painful thing.

We finally decided to use a way to help the user quickly complete the task, which is to place a check box directly on the right side of each item in the list, and of course, users can still click on the content itself to enter the details interface to see more of the relatively minor options.

　　7. The most important operation must be in the first screen

Using the Crown to roll the screen is one of the unique interactive ways of watch, it is creative and can help users to see more content in the small screen space. But it is undeniable that the rolling operation and then smooth again, it will prolong the interaction of the human machine long.

When testing the first version of the design, we found that it is very inconvenient to put the action button at the end of the content for quick operation. Especially for those things that are slightly longer, the Operation button is bound to be the top of the so-called "line below", the user has to move his finger to the crown to scroll to see. Although it is a very short action, it will still bring about a very smooth experience. We tried several scenarios, and finally decided to put two buttons on top, to maximize the maintenance of its accessibility.

　　8. The use of color and icon should have a clear purpose

We hope that the watch version of Todoist will still reflect some of the look and feel of the iphone version, including the brand color and icon image. For small screens of 38mm, this is not easy.

We need to watch for the small screen features necessary to redesign the icon, including the brand color and other elements also imperceptibly through the Watch app, but also must ensure that the interface and elements of the readable, readable. We have reused the iphone version of icons that have been known to users, increasing the line width of the strokes to make sure they are high enough in contrast and clarity on the black screen background.

　　9. Through a small amount of action to improve the performance of the experience

No matter what platform, if designed properly, the dynamic effect can make the interactive way easier to understand, experience is also richer and more enjoyable. The so-called "proper", not only includes the form, the appropriate quantity is also very important, too many dynamic effects in the interface will only make the interactive process slow, boring-for Apple Watch, this is particularly noteworthy.

We decided to proceed cautiously in the watch version of the todoist, and only two of them were used to customize the effects. The first is when you tick off a task list, the checkbox is filled with the background color, the check box appears, then the task content is dimmed, and the last item disappears. This set of short and delicate dynamic processes can clearly and accurately convey the status of completion to the user, letting them know that their click behavior achieves the desired results. The second dynamic is the empty status of today's task view, a very fulfilling hook, the user completed the day after all the items will be seen.

　　10. Limitations

The design and technical limitations of the first generation of Apple Watch are also something we have to deal with, such as the problem of displaying static images in glance view, or the lack of customized gesture usage. In addition, all third-party apps are available only as an extension of the iphone app, which directly affects the performance of the Watch app itself and runs slowly.

However, Apple will soon bring more exciting possibilities for third-party developers, such as WWDC's watchOS 2 will support localized apps and a series of good news. This means that we will soon be able to build a faster watch app that is independent of the iphone, and will be able to use more software and hardware interfaces in watch to create a richer experience for users, including Taptic calls, And the third party app information is exported directly to the complication of the dial, and so on.

We have always been excited, whether it is this way to explore and practice the new platform, or in the near future more exciting possibilities become reality, we will be in wearable equipment and productivity on the path of integration. Speaking of the most practical, we will continue to study, iterative, validation, so that our todoist can better use the characteristics of watch, to help users more easily and quickly to complete the important tasks of daily life.