The first generation of Apple Watch apps suffered mightily because developers had never laid eyes on one before they had to start building. As good as a software simulator might be, you can’t strap one onto your wrist and understand the critical subtleties of a user experience. It’s like premiering a symphony before you’re able to rehearse it; synthesizer aren’t quite the same thing.
Alex Muench, a product designer at doist, has written a highly insightful blog post explaining the choices that good developers are able to make now that they have watches in hand and can more fully understand how people use them. He illustrates 10 lessons he learned writing todoist.
Particularly interesting are the illustrations, because they show how important even the tiniest changes can be when you’re building a glance-able app on such a small screen.