Apple labored over the perfect interface for its Watch Activity app
Apple's Watch designers did a lot of reps on the Workout and Activity apps before arriving at the final design, according to an internal memo dug up by 9to5 Mac. The company's in-house fitness guru Jay Blahnik detailed the design process of the Watch's key apps, saying, "We kept asking ourselves, 'What could we do to measure all-day activity that would be more useful than traditional all-day activity trackers?'" To arrive at the answer, the company decided to build both apps in-house, in order to "build our own knowledge base from the ground up" rather than using off-the-shelf software.
He went on to say that while building the Workout app was hard enough, "we wanted to build something iconic" for Activity. They built that app around the guiding philosophy of "sit less, move more and get some exercise," but tried hundreds of interface designs to get that across. "The first time we saw the current Activity Rings design that ended up being the final design in the app, we knew that was it. Simple, elegant, unique, easy to view, visually motivating and fun." He added that he hopes that seeing how lazy or active you've been at a glance will "motivate (you) to do more." We'd hope that the $349 minimum entry ticket would be motivation enough.
