Apple Watch Platform Cognition and Product Design

Today, Apple Watch has entered our field of vision in a high-profile manner, but it has not officially entered our world. Most people's information source is still limited to Apple's official introduction. Everyone has expectations, explorations, and disappointments. The general view of those who hold a negative attitude is, "These things can be done on the iPhone... The screen of the mobile phone is so big, it looks more comfortable and comfortable to use... The frustrating battery life only supports 5 hours of high-intensity use... What's the point of buying it...", while optimists generally believe that as a new force in the Apple device ecosystem, although the Watch is not yet mature in technology, it has advantages that other devices cannot match, and it will, like its predecessors, first suppress and then promote, and explode in the consumer market at the right time.

The disappointed can represent the majority of “ordinary users” to a large extent – ​​here I will use the word “we” to refer to these “ordinary users”, don’t hurt your self-esteem, because although most of the people reading this article are colleagues in the same circle, as ordinary “people”, we are actually just ordinary users in most aspects of life, and we have common mindsets – in many cases, we really only have a seemingly rational recognition of known, familiar, and physically and mentally dependent products, and it is often difficult to break away from the thinking framework brought by existing products when we recognize new products – some distant examples include the classic “prefer a carriage instead of a car”, and some recent ones happen to us: when the iPhone and iPad first came out, we were confused and complained about their hardware forms, and blindly followed and echoed the media – until we really put these new devices into our own life situations, we found that although the original mobile phones and laptops seemed to meet daily needs, these new devices brought a completely different thinking mode. In this mode, you can not only complete some of the previous tasks more simply and quickly, but more importantly, many new possibilities are not provided by those previous devices – everyone can say “think different”, but for most people, it is often after the fact, which is also normal.

Since most of the people reading this article are colleagues in the industry, no matter you are pessimistic or optimistic about Apple Watch, we are not "ordinary users" in this specific context - the word "we" from now on will refer to all products, designers and developers like you and me who have the responsibility to put aside our likes and dislikes to think and understand the laws of device ecological evolution, and based on gradually clear cognition, create human-computer interaction experience for more ordinary users on the new platform.

This article is divided into three parts, covering three levels: platform cognition, product form and design pattern. I hope it can provide you with some exploration directions and thinking frameworks from a macro perspective.

Understanding the new platform

How should we explore and understand the new device platform and the ecosystem composed of the new platform and the "old" platform that is constantly evolving from the perspective of products and design? As practitioners, we have the same but different starting points as ordinary users when facing a new type of device. The same thing is that most of us have never used an Apple Watch, let alone experienced it in real life and work situations. The application scenarios we can see at present are still mainly those introduced by Apple. The difference is that from a professional perspective, we have richer and deeper historical experience with devices and products, so we may be more forward-looking in thinking about the role that new devices may play from the perspective of experience mode and human-computer interaction paradigm.

As mentioned before, it is usually difficult for people to get rid of the existing thinking framework to understand new products - we might as well try to go back and explore the unknown from the known. Looking back at the development of iOS devices and the impact they have on people's lives, I personally think that the iPad is still the most typical case - after all, the iPhone used the familiar product form of "mobile phone" to impact the old market and old concepts, while the first generation iPad was a real "new thing" for most people at the time - I clearly remember my first reaction at the time: "It's just a large iPod Touch" (still establishing a connection with existing cognition), and I couldn't see the significance of this expensive screen to my life. As I saw more and more media reports with similar views (even more pointed and aggressive), as well as complaints from many people around me, I almost developed an inexplicable pleasure and confidence - until one day I saw a colleague using it and couldn't help but borrow it to play with it. I was immediately attracted by Flipboard's simple and exquisite large-size magazine-like appearance and natural and calm motion effects. From then on, I couldn't stop and soon bought one of my own from the Apple Store and took it home (I remember that at the moment of tearing off the protective film, my cat suddenly reached out and pressed the screen, leaving a dirty little plum blossom).

Although this purchase was more out of the desire to own the beautiful look rather than the real practical value, with the continuous actual use in life, including the trial of various apps, I gradually found that the time I spent on the iPad every night has surpassed that of the PC and laptop; in the past few years, I have heard more and more similar voices: "Now I basically don't turn on the computer at home at night, just curl up in bed with an iPad is enough." Until now, in the evening when I don't have to do anything, I half lie in bed and browse articles, read books, watch videos, etc. This "large iPod Touch" is still the best choice, of course, this also includes the iPad Mini that I have relied on more in the past one or two years; in addition, after buying an Apple TV, if I curl up on the sofa in the living room with my cat at night, I will directly AirPlay the video to the TV, freeing my hands to serve the cat or have a few drinks.

I have used quite a few words to describe my own experience (which is also shared by many people I know), not for the purpose of telling a story – I want to extract some key words from it for analysis, hoping that this method can bring some superficial inspiration to everyone (including myself) on the question of "how to understand the new platform":

• Practical Use

• Endless Apps

• A night without work

• Half lying down to read news, articles, and videos

• iPad Mini

• Apple TV and AirPlay

• Free your hands

Looking at new things based on existing cognition is different from experiencing them in reality (real use, not hands-on trials). Before actually using them, as a "professional", don't be easily misled by one-sided or extreme opinions, whether these opinions come from "ordinary users" or "professional media". In addition, with the development trend of the gradual blurring of the boundaries between software and hardware, new devices have certainly brought new hardware features and technical frameworks, but product, design and development personnel like you and me must first establish correct cognition and strive to create "endless apps" and tap into more possibilities, so that the value of the new platform can be more fully reflected until "ordinary users" can gain value from it and identify with it.

The so-called "doing things" for me personally generally includes blogging and design work. These things require me to use my MacBook more attentively or connect another monitor to complete them. Usually, I need to put the main tools (Evernote or Sketch, etc.) and reference and material resources (presented through the browser or Finder) side by side in front of me, and work together through input tools such as physical keyboards and trackpads. For these things, I never think that iPad can be competent; in these situations, desktop devices are the most appropriate tools.

The process of building an ecosystem is to continuously provide typical tools for users' typical demand scenarios and make these tools interconnected to create a seamless experience. It is no longer appropriate to examine any single device type with the standard of "whether it can solve all problems with one device at all times". In recent years, those who have been throwing out ignorant arguments such as "desktop devices are dead in the tablet era" are the same "professional media" who predicted that the iPad would be useless - just as they are happy to declare that "blogs are dead in the Weibo era" or "Weibo is dead in the Moments era" - times are indeed changing, but both software and hardware products are differentiating and evolving around "multiple situations, multiple goals", and it is better to stand alone than to do ten things alone - let specific forms focus more on meeting specific needs in specific situations - when we need to accumulate, create and read content, blogs are still our main tools; when we need to quickly spread or obtain fragmented personal information, platforms such as WeChat or Weibo will become the first choice - this is the same as using a MacBook when doing things, an iPad when not doing things, taking out an iPhone to communicate with friends on WeChat when you have a few moments of free time, and staying connected to the most important activities only through Watch when you are busy, and so on.

There is another question here: Speaking of "specific needs are completed through specific forms of devices", yes, my "serious work" is indeed not suitable for completion on iPad, but "half-lying down to read news, articles, and videos" is something that Macbook can fully handle, not only on iPad; so what is the value of iPad? Compared to around 2010, this question is self-evident to most people today - for those things that can be done with either a laptop or an iPad, it is obviously easier, faster, and more comfortable to achieve them with iPad. In the era of multiple devices, the word "need" is no longer simply equivalent to "function", and "experience" accounts for a larger proportion of needs than ever before - devices that can help users achieve their goals in specific situations with the lowest cognitive and interactive costs are what we call "specific forms of devices".

Starting from this point, the following keywords can be connected. For activities such as "half-lying down to read news, articles, and videos", once we get used to the lightness, speed, and comfort brought by the iPad, it will be difficult for us to go back to the days when we relied on laptops to complete them, even though everything seemed normal in those days and we didn't seem to need any new devices. The iPad is not the end of evolution. People always hope to achieve their goals in a more convenient and easier way. After getting the iPad Mini, my old Pad gradually retired. Putting aside the performance factors, the Mini does make me feel more convenient. It takes up less space at the bedside, and when I put it in my bag and take it out of the house when needed, it will not have a noticeable sense of weight like the old Pad. At the same time, my leisure and entertainment needs will not be so sensitive that I cannot withstand the reduction in screen size. When Apple TV and AirPlay entered my life, new possibilities that were previously unforeseen also came along with it – when watching videos, I no longer had to hold the small screen in front of my chest all the time, I could just put it aside and use the TV as its "enhancement device" or "second screen", and at the same time I could use my freed hands to do other things, such as taking care of cats, drawing sketches, playing the piano, and having a drink. (It should be noted that Apple TV has not officially entered the domestic market, and it is necessary to set up DNS and other aspects to access domestic content sources. Some relatively niche content is easier to obtain through video apps on iOS devices, so I often use AirPlay instead of directly obtaining it through TV)

After this differentiation, I can be as relaxed as possible when I need to be relaxed, and as professional as possible when I need to be professional. Each type of equipment can give full play to its advantages in specific situations, and transfer the load that it is not good at to more suitable equipment to handle - life is indeed a little better.

Having said a lot about “cognition”, we have already subtly touched upon the subject of Apple Watch, especially the last topic about “enhanced devices” – from here we can move on to exploring the Watch product model.

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Explore product forms

The operation of Apple Watch is inseparable from iPhone (at least for Unit-01; what is Unit-01), while the use of iPhone does not require any other device as a prerequisite (apart from the factors of the ecosystem). Such a comparison does make people question the function, positioning and value of Watch.

This situation has a lot to do with the limitations of the first-generation Watch in hardware technology, such as computing power, storage capacity, and more basic battery life issues; especially the latter, which is difficult to achieve the expected ideal state under existing technical conditions, so a lot of computing and storage loads must be transferred to the iPhone in order to find a balance between performance and battery life.

Although the factor of "hardware technology limitations" will largely determine the current form and performance of the product, from a development perspective, it is by no means a decisive factor that restricts our thinking about product design - regarding technology, we have no way of knowing when humans will be able to create something like a time machine or a stargate; but when it comes to technology at the level of "mainstream computing devices", its evolutionary ability is self-evident. Just look at the speed at which iOS and Mac OS devices have improved in all aspects of performance over the years; if you look ahead to even only a year or even half a year later, the situation will be different.

The focus is still on the new thinking framework that the new equipment symbiosis brings to product design.

Below I will briefly talk about my personal understanding of the so-called "new thinking framework", hoping to provide a reference for everyone when thinking about the product form of Watch; it is just my personal opinion, and it can be regarded as a starting point for discussion.

I prefer the word “symbiosis” to describe the relationship between the Apple Watch and the iPhone, which is a two-way relationship rather than “dependency.” In this relationship, both the Watch and the iPhone have two sides, which is something we have never faced before.

What do the so-called "two-sidedness" and "symbiotic relationship" mean? We have learned about some typical apps and their usage scenarios through Apple's keynote speeches and official website introductions, and there are also some discussions about possible product forms in the future (not referring to those so-called conceptual designs on Dribbble). In summary, for the first generation of Watch, application products can be roughly divided into the following two modes:

• Watch is the main device in human-computer interaction. Users use Watch to complete their goals in specific situations. iPhone, as an auxiliary device, is equivalent to the "processor" and "storage" of data, playing a role similar to that of a butler.

• As the main device in human-computer interaction, iPhone enables users to complete their goals in specific situations; Watch, as an auxiliary device, plays a role like a communicator.

Watch as the master device

In this mode, the Watch is more independent from the perspective of perception and experience; although from a technical perspective it still needs to communicate with the iPhone, for users, the target task can be completed mainly by interacting with the Watch.

What types of products are suitable for this model? Combined with the viewpoints in the previous analysis of "keywords", we can roughly conclude that the functions required by users can be fully realized on both Watch and iPhone, but in the specific context of the user, the products with the lowest interaction cost using Watch are the ones that can be realized.

Whether the interaction cost is low depends on two factors: one is the characteristics of the device itself, and the other is the complexity of the product functions and content.

As Apple has always emphasized, Watch is a very personal product. The so-called "personalization" not only includes the functions they strongly promote, such as physical condition tracking and ever-changing dial settings and wristband matching, but also, from the perspective of human-computer interaction, it means that it is always attached to the user's body and located on the wrist, where the user can focus their sight by raising their hand. Compared with the iPhone, which is always placed outside the body (in trouser pockets, bags, etc.), this feature is the natural advantage of Watch. What we need to consider more is the second factor, that is, whether the complexity of the product itself in terms of functions and content is suitable for being carried by Watch. You can try to consider it from the following aspects:

• In terms of information input, in addition to voice commands and dictation, does your product require more complex and specialized input methods to ensure basic operation?

• In terms of operation, in addition to basic clicks, swipes and Force Touch, does your product function require more gesture operations to support it?

• In terms of the interactive process, is it simple enough to complete a functional cycle within a few seconds? If the functional cycle lasts for a long time, does it require users to maintain continuous visual focus and manual operation during this period?

• In terms of information output, can the content be simplified to a space that can be fully browsed on one screen, or at most two or three swipes?

Apple's official introduction of built-in apps such as Calendar, Activity, Workout, Siri, remote control, weather, alarm clock, stopwatch, timer, etc., including third-party apps such as Shazam, Uber, SPG, Green Kitchen, etc., in my opinion, basically belong to this category. When actively initiating a task, you need to enter the corresponding app through the home screen icon. It must be pointed out that when defining the mode above, we also mentioned "specific situations": the division of modes is not clear-cut, and Watch does not provide a low-cost interactive experience in all cases. Even if the product meets the other considerations above, when the user's needs shift in a more specific direction, the roles of the "primary" and "secondary" devices are likely to be interchanged.

Also, remember that what we are discussing now is, after all, the first generation of Watch. As this type of device continues to develop in hardware technology and application scenarios, the role of the iPhone in this model will become increasingly weaker; at some point in the future, the Watch may truly exist independently, with apps localized without the need for any other device as a "housekeeper." By that time, will the connection between the Watch and the iPhone no longer exist? Personally, I don't think so; the reason lies in the second type of symbiotic relationship that we will discuss next.

Watch as an accessory

The complexity of content and functions of products in this mode has exceeded the capacity of Watch. The inherent advantages of Watch are not enough to offset the inherent defects of the device form, such as the small screen space that greatly restricts content presentation and interactive operations; whether it is to obtain content or perform operations, only iPhone can provide a relatively ideal experience. Just as iPad cannot undertake the design and content editing work that MacBook can easily handle, no matter how light and comfortable it is.

However, unlike the case of iPad, although Watch cannot take on the main task, its own characteristics can make it an enhanced device for iPhone - users cannot conveniently complete those tasks through iPhone in all situations, but at least they can stay connected with those tasks - or more precisely, the people and information behind those tasks - through auxiliary devices anytime and anywhere.

"Stay connected" can be divided into two forms: one is that the user actively initiates the connection, and the other is that the user passively accepts the connection. In the former, the user can obtain instant information from the main device through one or two gestures on the Watch; in the latter, when there is a status update in the main device, the relevant information will be directly conveyed to the user through the Watch, and the user will judge whether to switch to the main device to complete the task based on the current situation, or directly conduct relevant lightweight interactions through the Watch. We will talk about the design patterns corresponding to these two types of connections later.

What are the features of products belonging to this type of model in terms of function and content? In fact, they can also be judged by the four considerations mentioned in the previous type, but the answers are just the opposite.

I remember Jonathan Ive said that it is obviously inappropriate to read "War and Peace" on Watch; let alone whether iPhone is suitable for reading books, but compared with Watch, longer content or fragmented content with a large timeline span is indeed more suitable for iPhone. From this point of view, I personally do not agree with the usage of Instagram shown on Apple's official website, and I am also skeptical about whether WeChat on Watch should retain Moments. In my opinion, it is enough to get update notifications from these platforms through Watch, or provide one to three recent content. If users feel it is necessary or more convenient at the moment, they can transfer to iPhone to make full use of the large screen space to get it. As for videos and more complex games, I personally think there is almost no value in discussion - this kind of content and interactive form is an immersive product with a long human-computer conversation time and high power consumption even on large-screen iOS devices - if you have so much time to kill, use iPhone or iPad, be good to yourself. Possible exceptions may occur in the future when Watch is powerful enough to play a role in augmented reality games, which may be another topic.

For this type of product model, the role of the iPhone will not weaken as the hardware capabilities of the Watch develop, because it itself is the most appropriate operating platform; and no matter how the Watch evolves, it can use its natural advantage of being "on the wrist" to play the role of a communicator for this type of product, while differentiating more and more subsidiary tasks from the main target behavior and taking on them.

From the understanding of new devices to the product thinking framework, we will now move on to the third part of this article to understand which human-computer interaction modes can help us build different types of products under the new thinking framework.

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Understand design patterns

Apple Watch provides us with three human-computer interaction modes, including WatchKit app, Glance and Notification. These names should be familiar to everyone, as they have been introduced in Apple's keynote speeches and official websites. Understanding these three concepts and related operating mechanisms will help us choose the most appropriate design mode for different types of products.

WatchKit app

You can think of it as what we usually call an "Apple Watch app" - enter it by clicking the icon on the home screen, just like we enter the app on the iPhone.

However, from a technical point of view, the complete Watch application consists of two parts:

• WatchKit app, running on the Watch.

• WatchKit extension, which runs on the iPhone.

Among them, the WatchKit app is used to build the application interface on the Watch, and the WatchKit extension running on the iPhone is responsible for dynamically updating the data content in the WatchKit app interface.

The WatchKit app and extension are packaged in the iPhone application installation package. After the user installs the application on the phone, the WatchKit app is deployed to the paired Apple Watch. The corresponding icon appears on the first screen and can be entered by clicking it. This installation and operation mechanism is one of the specific manifestations of the "Apple Watch cannot operate without the iPhone" mentioned above.

WatchKit app supports two interface navigation methods: paging and hierarchical . These are concepts we are already familiar with in iOS design, and the application scenarios are also very similar.

For apps with simple data models and no direct correlation between data in different interfaces, it is more reasonable to use a paging navigation with a flatter architecture:

For apps with complex information structures or interaction flows, hierarchical navigation is more suitable:

These two navigation methods are essentially mutually exclusive and cannot be mixed, so a one-time choice needs to be made during the design phase based on the actual product situation. At the same time, they both support the presentation of modal views, which themselves are composed of one or a series of pages based on paged navigation. So there are more possibilities to explore beyond the basic navigation structure.

In terms of interface operation, tapping (single-clicking) is still the main method of interaction. Other functions, such as scrolling by swiping vertically, browsing the interface forward and backward in the paged navigation frame by swiping horizontally, swiping from the left edge of the screen to return to the parent interface in the hierarchical navigation frame, etc., are also similar to iOS devices; however, Apple Watch does not support multi-finger gestures, such as pinching and pinching with two fingers.

There are also new ways of interaction, such as the digital crown, which can provide precise scrolling without blocking the screen like swiping gestures, but so far it has only opened the scrolling interface to third-party apps. If you want to use the crown to achieve zooming and other functions in your own products, you can only look to the future. Force Touch (also used on the new MacBook) can be used to call out contextual menus related to the current interface.

After all, WatchKit app is the main form of Watch application. From the use of various UI controls to layout, fonts, color matching principles, dynamic effect implementation, etc., there are too many things to understand, and this article will not go into such a detailed level. I suggest that all brothers and sisters take some time to read the official interface design specification - Apple Watch Human Interface Guidelines in full. The Chinese version I made is here. You can also refer to it if you need it. It is not recommended as the first choice because it is not timely and some official updated content is not included. In addition, if the situation permits, you can also read the Apple Watch Programming Guide, which is also from the official. Overly technical topics are not within our scope, but those contents that explain how to customize UI elements are still of some reference value to designers.

Glance

Glancing at your wrist to check the time has been a habit since the advent of the watch in the 19th century, and with Apple Watch, that habitual glance can tell you more. We developed Glances, a feature that refines the information you check most frequently and makes your favorite apps more suitable for browsing on your wrist. To view relevant information, just swipe up with your finger to instantly browse the weather forecast, check the next schedule on your calendar, or find your current location on a map. You can flip through different glances by swiping left or right, or tap one to open the corresponding app for detailed information.

Even if we haven't actually played it, the official introduction is enough to help us imagine possible real-life situations.

Glance is an optional add-on for WatchKit apps. It can be called up by swiping up from the bottom edge of the screen. It is used to quickly view instant information in the corresponding app, similar to the widget in the iPhone notification center. Since it is an optional component, it means that only certain forms of products are necessary to use it. For example, for calendar applications, Glance can be used to display the user's next schedule; travel applications can display the boarding information of the flight that the user is going to take in Glance; and to-do products can help users quickly view to-do items through Glance.

Each app can only have one Glance view, so for a travel app, it is impossible to put all the user's recent flights into a single Glance; to-do products cannot use multiple Glances to display multiple to-do lists at the same time. All the Glances of the apps will be arranged in a paged form, and you can switch between them by swiping left or right on the screen, just like we saw in Apple's demonstration.

Before designing a Glance view for a product, you need to understand its style and behavior characteristics:

style

Each Glance is equivalent to a card of fixed size and limited capacity, and the content in it cannot be scrolled. If your app has too much information that needs to be presented to users immediately, then in the face of such a small and unexpandable space, what should be displayed and what should be discarded? Prioritization is particularly important - you must ensure that the information most relevant to the user's behavioral goals when viewing the Glance is presented in the shortest form.

After determining what information to present, the layout of the content must also reflect the hierarchy. In the 1.5-inch screen space, the priority and logical relationship of information are presented through different font sizes, font colors and grouping relationships, which is also a consideration of the designer's basic skills. But the good news is that Apple has officially prepared a complete set of Glance layout templates for us to refer to, including both 38mm and 42mm specifications, and provided in Sketch format.

Behavior

Glance does not carry any interactive controls, such as buttons, switches, sliders, etc.; tapping anywhere in Glance will open the corresponding app . In order to avoid the abuse of this feature, the design specifications specifically emphasize that Glance must provide users with immediate and useful information, and do not provide Glance views just to add a quick launch entry to your application.

Notification

Because it is connected to your iPhone, Apple Watch not only tells the time, but also gives you thoughtful reminders based on your life and schedule. When you receive emails, messages, and calls, you will receive instant notifications so that you can choose to respond or ignore them at the first time. Apple Watch is always close to your wrist, so this reminder is timely and intimate. It will touch your wrist and quietly remind you of the time and place of your next meeting, the current traffic conditions, and even suggest when to leave. You can always swipe down to enter the notification center to see what you may have missed.

Notifications on the Watch are similar to notifications on the iPhone. If your iPhone app supports notifications, then the Watch will also support Notifications. When a message comes in, the system will prompt you through the tactile feedback of the Taptic engine. If you raise your wrist to check, the system will display the message on the screen.

Notification is divided into two modes: "Normal" and "Interactive" - ​​similar to the iPhone, which will display a "Normal" notification banner at the top of the screen by default, and switch it to interactive mode when pulled down, providing operations such as reply - but on the Watch side, these two modes are called "Short Look" and "Long Look" respectively.

The interface of Short Look is extremely simple. We don’t need (and can’t) design it by ourselves. The form is completely defined by the system template, including the app icon, message title, and app name, all displayed on one screen, and no scrolling is supported. The entire Short Look only provides the minimum necessary information so that users can make a judgment in the shortest time; and the system will take the next action based on the natural reaction of the user after making the judgment - if the user thinks that the notification information is not important to him at the moment, the most intuitive way is to put his hand down and ignore it. At this time, the Watch will sense the user’s action and ignore the information (you can still review it in the notification center of the Watch); if the user thinks that the notification information is important, then he will not put his hand down for a while. The system will judge this "maintaining posture" behavior as "the user has the motivation to learn more information", and then automatically convert Short Look to Long Look mode to provide more detailed content, including some related interactive functions.

From the moment the system receives a notification to the moment Long Look is presented, the entire process is, in my opinion, a brilliant achievement of Apple Watch in terms of human-computer interaction – making full use of the capabilities of sensors to determine when and how to display information based on the user’s natural behavior, making the interface and content more contextualized to serve the user’s current motivations, without requiring the user to pay cognitive and interaction costs for the interface or device itself – this is the taste of “intelligence”.

Let's go back to Long Look. Compared to Short Look, the content format is naturally richer and usually longer, so it supports scrolling. Although the content is relatively rich, it still has to follow the standard framework provided by the system: the top bar is provided by the system to display the app icon and name (with customizable background color); the Dismiss button at the bottom is also output by the system to close the Notification; and the area between the two can be defined by the app itself, including content and interactive functions.

The content part is used to present the complete notification information by default; you can customize its format to display some static, auxiliary UI elements (Static Interface) or more detailed and structured information (Dynamic Interface), rather than just the default text content.

In the interactive function section, you can place up to 4 customized function buttons. Don't ignore this. They are not as simple as adding "confirm" and "cancel" buttons to some pop-up layers as we have always been accustomed to. After fully considering what kind of context and what form to provide valuable information to users, we also need to consider how to help users interact with the information directly here to avoid transferring the operation load to the iPhone. If you only remind without providing useful interactive functions, users must frequently take out their phones to complete all tasks. In a sense, this is actually increasing the burden on users. Such an "ecosystem" is not as convenient as an iPhone device.

Product form determines design mode

In the second part of this article (“Exploring Product Forms”), we roughly divide products into two models from the perspective of two-way symbiosis, including:

• Watch is the main interactive device, and iPhone is a subsidiary.

• iPhone is the main interactive device, and Watch is a subsidiary.

The first type of products has a more independent attitude on the Watch side. Users usually keep operating in the Watch until the main tasks are completed; WatchKit app, as the main interface between the product and the user, carries most of the human-computer interaction. For products of this model, the design focus will focus on the WatchKit app itself (even without even having Glance and Notification) - Based on the product's own characteristics in information architecture and task process, combined with the scalability requirements that may arise with the evolution of hardware in the future, choose the most reasonable navigation mode, and try to ensure that users can come to the main interactive interface through the minimum number of steps after entering the app.

In the main interactive interface, try to intensive the most core operations into the range of one screen; for those operations related to the current interface content but with weights second to the core functions, don’t forcefully pursue presentation through the current screen – if the limitations of space are really difficult to break through, we don’t even need to provide at least one “more” as an entrance like on a mobile phone – don’t forget that we can use Force Touch to “short” to call out a contextual menu. From a design perspective, there is a reason Apple first launched this technology in the Watch “small screen” device: when the plane formed by the x and y axes is difficult to provide more space, go to the z axis; the same is true for interactive actions – add a depth dimension to the “tap” gesture acting on the plane, and new possibilities will follow.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Similarly, we have also emphasized in the previous article that the interactive capabilities of Notifcation, as a "passive connection" carrier, cannot be ignored. We must ensure that several basic operations most relevant to the notification content are provided through the Long Look view, so that users can complete it in a minimizing manner on the Watch when they think it is necessary to feedback information, rather than having to take out the iPhone from their pocket, unlock, find the icon and enter the app to perform it.

Speaking of this, you may also find that in terms of the positioning relationship between WatchKit app, Glance and Notification, it is not absolute which model a specific product belongs to; we also mentioned in the previous article that in some cases, the mode is likely to be interchanged. The theoretical framework ultimately depends on specific products in a specific situation. For us, the most important thing is to ensure that the information that is most suitable for quick access and the interactive functions that are most suitable for Watch in any interface mode; as for whether the user chooses to complete the goal through Watch or transfer to iPhone to obtain a more complete experience, it is up to him to judge based on his own goal and the specific situation he is in.

Conclusion

This article is about to end, but the topic of Apple Watch product design has just entered the groundbreaking stage. Soon, Watch will officially enter our life, and we will have the opportunity to experience this new device in practice. I hope that by then I can share more practical experience on Watch product design with you, and at the same time I hope to discuss and communicate with you on more related topics.