Artalex English And Numbers IV Smartwatch Watch Face by Pan Yong is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2019 A' Design Award in Interface, Interaction and User Experience Design Competition Category.
IronInterface· 2019
Artalex English And Numbers IV Smartwatch Watch Face
by Pan Yong
Client: Artalex
A' Design Award Winner in Interface Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #78263The Design
About Artalex English And Numbers IV Smartwatch Watch Face
A natural way to read time. The English and numbers go together, form a futuristic look and feel. The layout of the dial let user gets the information on battery, date, daily steps in a quick way. With multiple colour themes, the overall look and feel is suitable for both casual looking and sporty looking smart watches.
The Recognition
About the A' Design Award
Artalex English And Numbers IV Smartwatch Watch Face is an Iron A' Design Award winner, a prestigious recognition granted to good designs that meet the professional and industrial requirements expected from well-designed creations. Iron winners demonstrate great skill, high specialization, expert understanding, and creative capacity of their creators. Artalex English And Numbers IV Smartwatch Watch Face is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished creation that is practical and innovative. This Iron A' Design Award-winning design integrates industry best practices and has competent technical characteristics linked with know-how and talent. Artalex English And Numbers IV Smartwatch Watch Face is respected for its thoroughness and is designed to provide quality of life improvements that help make the world a better place.
Interviews
Design Interview
What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
The inspiration is that there are too many traditional watch faces in both analog and digital categories, I want to do something different. A text-based hybrid type.
What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
With the idea, a hybrid type, in mind, I realised that the way of reading the time itself could be a hybrid type. So the main focus is how to convert the natural way of read the time into a unique hybrid type. How do we read the time? “4:50 pm” right? Why not “Four45 pm”? That will make the number-based time a text and number combined type.
What are your future plans for this award winning design?
For my own use or sell it.
Grand Interview
Your innovative approach to displaying time through English text and numbers in the Artalex English And Numbers IV Smartwatch Watch Face represents a departure from traditional watch faces - could you elaborate on how this fusion of linguistic and numerical elements emerged during your creative process?
The idea of combining English text with numerical time display in the Artalex English And Numbers IV Smartwatch Watch Face stemmed from a desire to reimagine the reading experience on a smartwatch. Traditional watches focus solely on numerical data, while my approach sought to bridge intuitive language with the precision of numbers. This blend emerged as I realized that language could introduce a more relatable, even poetic, aspect to checking the time, thus creating a more human-centered experience.
The Artalex English And Numbers IV Smartwatch Watch Face earned recognition at the A' Design Award for its user experience design - how did you balance the need for quick information access with maintaining the distinctive futuristic aesthetic?
In designing for both ease of access and a futuristic look, I focused on a minimalist layout, carefully positioning the elements to minimize clutter. Each display element, from battery status to step count, is laid out for quick readability, while the aesthetic is kept sleek and modern with metallic and subdued tones. The futuristic aesthetic is achieved through subtle gradients and text styles that resonate with high-tech design principles without overpowering functionality.
What specific user feedback and research insights shaped the evolution of the Artalex English And Numbers IV Smartwatch Watch Face from its initial version to its current form, particularly regarding the integration of additional features like battery status, date, and step counting?
User feedback played a crucial role in refining the design. Early users requested additional features like step counting and battery percentage, which led to the careful integration of these elements without overwhelming the interface. Research highlighted the importance of a balanced interface where each added feature could be accessed without compromising readability. This feedback refined the font choices, element placement, and the intuitive navigation flow, making each iteration more user-friendly.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- An easy-to-read and unique watch face for smart watch. The reading of time consists of English and numbers to let user read the time in a natural way. The layout of the dial is unique while user still can get the information on battery, date, daily steps in a quick way.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Width 400px, Height 400px. Support Samsung Gear watches (Gear S2, S3, Sports, Galaxy Watch) and all Android smart watches (WatchMaker app needed on the watch to load up the watch face)
- Tags
- futuristic, business, casual, informative
- Production Technology
- The actual product has two versions (same design). It can be obtained from Samsung Gear Store and from WatchMaker app.
The native Samsung Gear version is for Samsung Gear watch users. It was developed with GalaxyWatchDesigner, a tool for developing watch face from Samsung. URL: https://t.co/0N1zt1nGRy
The WatchMaker version is for WatchMaker app user. It can be downloaded from WatchMaker app and sync into your smart watch (WatchMaker app needed on your watch). URL: http://www.getwatchmaker.com/watch/sB1x8P9h7X - Design Challenge
- The challenge during development is how to code the switch (for WatchMaker version) to change the colour. Because I just started using WatchMaker app for a short time. Still exploring the Lua language for coding. As I was making more and more watch faces, technical problems were solved.
- Research
- I was playing with text and numbers, trying to figure out a nice way to display time, but it needs to be different from those traditional digital watch. Then came out with a very simple version (version 1), only shows English and numbers with a battery bar below them. After wearing for a few weeks, I got some comments from friends. They want to add in other information such as weather, date, month, steps, etc. Then I started to think about the layout, the feeling. Try to make the dial more user-friendly. After a few months of experiment, from version 2 to version 4, finally came out the current design. So I name it "English And Numbers IV". While providing the most-wanted information, the dial still has the futuristic feeling. The tool I used is WatchMaker app. I directly developed it in the app. Once finalised the design, I started developing the Samsung Tizen native version. The feedbacks from Samsung App Store are very good. People love it.
- Inspiration
- The reason of doing this watch face is that I do not like the stock ones in my smart watch. Those are just very common and traditional. I need a cool and unique feeling. It should be easy to read and informative, at the same time, stands out among those traditional ones. The inspiration is the way of people read out the time. For example, 10:45, people read it "Ten forty five". Then here comes the design: TEN45. Even if people do not understand English, there is still a little white "Hour indicator" to show the hour. So for those who are non-English user, there is no problem using it.
- Project Duration
- The project started in May 2017 and finished in July 2018 in Singapore.
- Operation Flow
- For Samsung Tizen native version, just tap anywhere to change the colour. For WatchMaker version, tap the small dot at the right lower corner (below month) to change the theme.
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