Apple Watch and the Importance of Design Thinking
It has been a common tradition for the last 15 or so years that for every new product category that Apple creates, reinvents or participates in, they announce how proud they are. So proud in fact, that the first slides of their keynotes and part of their discourses in their quarterly earnings and press releases are centered on the growth of these categories.
This discourse for the Apple Watch has been silent. Curiously so. The media has debated about his: This product is not about sales? First-gen product? People don't get it? Wearables are difficult?
All of these are plausible hypotheses, but still something seems amiss on such a high profile launch, and indeed something is: in stark contrast to other Apple hits, this is a product looking for a market and not the only way around. The Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad all had one thing in common: purpose. Briefly characterized: "a computer for the rest of us", "1000 songs in your pocket", "an iPod, a phone and a revolutionary internet communicator" and "an awesome product in-between a laptop and a smartphone" respectively. The Apple watch has none, its a product that exists because there seems to be a need for it. It seems like the watch was defined -most technologically advanced smartwatch-, positioned -a premium/luxury device- and sold -by appointment only initially- by a committee. A committee that was told to develop such a product.
This is the watch's biggest sin, it has no meaningful purpose. It exists because it has to. The needs of consumers were never probed and the result was a product looking for a market in stark contrast to Apple's previous hits.
The developers failed to grasp what makes an $18.000 watch what it is: timeless, as in it is never obsolete by definition and can be handed over from generation to generation. Also, they never clearly articulated what it should be used for and no thought was given to the user experience.
The result is a watch with built-in obsolescence, a watch that has too many interaction elements (crown, touch, force touch and side button) and one that does not solve the many issues plaguing other smartwatch efforts such as battery life and social aspects relating to what staring at the watch conveys to others.
With that, Apple did what it has opposed so many times: make a "me too" product. The company needs to find what makes users tick -pun intended- with wearables and thus, craft a solution accordingly. They know how to do this, its what they are best at, even if that means placing the current product on hiatus and rethinking the category as a whole. Also, they must consider one of the maxims of design: never fall in love with your ideas. Finally, as Einstein famously said, make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.
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