I'm a big fan of 'accessibility first' design. Beyond the obvious benefits to those who need them, it also creates affordances for people without disabilities too.

An aside, but the Bradley watch[1] mentioned looks great. Shame it's so big.

[1] http://www.dezeenwatchstore.com/shop/the-bradley-stainless-s...

>Shame it's so big.

40mm is actually on the smaller side for watches. Divers start at 42mm typically. The Apple watch she purchased is also 42mm.

Increasing watch size is a trend. Watches have not always been comically large.

See:

http://www.ablogtowatch.com/whats-deal-big-watch-sizes-large...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/fashion/trends/watchmakers...

42mm tall but not wide. Most watches are 42mm in diameter... the Apple watch looks puny on most men's wrists, especially when compared to a "traditional" divers watch.

That's a bad ass looking watch too! I want one!

I assumed it was big to allow easy tactile reading.

> I assumed it was big to allow easy tactile reading.

Braille is quite small though? Perhaps it's just a stylistic choice, or the mechanism/durability constraints demand a larger size.

Many blind people tell the time by feeling the machinery on their watches. This is simply a watch which is designed for that and I would imagine, less prone to the issues usually experienced: e.g. a blind person might have a watch with the face removed, and touch the hands in order to tell the time. The problem is the hands can move slightly, so it throws off the watch's accuracy.

That's right. The magnets that keep the balls in place are on the inside. You can move the balls and they will just roll back into place[0], eliminating the chance of setting the time.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiNHDF2e54s

Watches for the blind are called Braille watches but (almost?) never use Braille to indicate time digitally (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille_watch)

A normal analog watch with a sturdier mechanism and stronger hands, that can be flipped open to feel the location of the hands is cheaper and smaller than anything with refreshable Braille cells.

I think you read more into my statement than I intended. I have no problem with big watches, and I'm happy for people who can enjoy them! It's only a shame because I have small wrists, so it's not suitable for me :)

You're the one who don't get it. This watch is very nice and non-blind people also wear it. For people like me with small wrist, this watch is very big and its a "shame".

We don't think its a shame that this watch is too big for all people, we just hope that a smaller model exist even if it is less readable for blind people.

Its your turn to think about what you wrote. You seem to think that this watch is reserved for blind people. Don't you think that non-blind may think this watch is beautiful and want one ? Do you really think that having a smaller model make impossible to also have the big one ?

> You seem to think that this watch is reserved for blind people.

Certainly not. The watch was originally developed for blind people but I encourage everybody to wear it. I think it is better that some sighted people get over their hangups about 'too big' watches on their wrist, which is an arbitrary fashion choice, and focus on the functionality instead. What's the point of making a smaller version of the Bradley Watch if it compromises on the functionality it was designed for? It feels like sighted people appropriating blind people's culture...

I'm butting up against HN's flame filter and it's not my intention to start a flame war so I'll stop here. My intent was to get Osmium to try the watch first for functionality before complaining about the looks of a tool for the blind.

> My intent was to get Osmium to try the watch first for functionality before complaining about the looks of a tool for the blind.

Maybe try working on your tone? It's never a good idea to start a comment with "You don't get it."

"it's not about you."

Actually, a casual comment expressing an opinion is typically about the person posting it.

"shame" can be defined in a couple of different ways. You're fixed on the feeling of humiliation. It can also be used in place of "pity" e.g. "It's a pity I didn't win the lottery." I don't feel ashamed about not winning, it's just a shame as it would've been useful to me.

This is the issue with smart-watches ... When I buy a watch I really care for the size and not only the model. I didn't buy watches I fell in love with because they were too small/too big ...

The 2 standard size format will leave many people out..

I am impressed and pleased that what a few years ago would have been a highly specialized disability support tool seems to now be a case of changing a few settings in a mass-produced product.

Apple have always been known for excellent accessibility in their products.

There was a story that came out when Jobs died about how he'd personally intervened when a bluetooth update(?) broke the software a kid in a wheelchair was using.

It probably would be more accurate to say "for the last 10 years" than "always".

In the early 2000s, Apple realized that some of their most prominent school deals were in danger of falling apart due to OS X's insufficient section 508 compliance. Since OS X marketshare was too small to ensure a sufficient ecosystem of third party accessibility solution providers (as existed for Windows), Apple formed an in-house accessibility team.

Over time, Apple realized that doing accessibility in-house and treating it as a full stack responsibility fit in well with the company philosophy, so today accessibility is indeed treated as a very important aspect of products.

Coincidentally, this week marks the 10th anniversary of the official release of VoiceOver, Apple's OS X screen reader.

Hmm, I missed this story. I'll have to look for it. It's a great testament to his vision and integrity, no matter what others may have perceived of him.

It's fantastic. Good accessibility support can make products better for everyone, even people with no particular disability can make use of them in certain situations.

Expected a very negative response, which to my surprise, was actually positive. Also very impressed with how even gadgets like the Apple Watch aimed at "high-class" citizens are still very consumer-friendly.

Also TIL about Usher Disease!

Cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

Interesting reading about the haptic notifications for navigation (different vibration patterns to turn left/right). Was something I worked on as a research project 4 years ago so it's neat to see being used for real.

This was a fascinating read for a view into a world I know all too little about. But an equally big takeaway for me is the idea that haptic feedback may end up being the biggest change that successful wearable products bring to our lives. The potential is there for nearly everyone. Great post.

I haven't thought much of the apple watch yet but I may have severely underestimated the utility of a device that's always with me and able to gently give my arm a tap or a buzz.

The apple watch's kill app may be haptic.

I think Apple is counting much more on the 'novel' input/output stuff like the little drawings, different buzzes, etc. And it makes sense, considering that, in my opinion, this has been one of the biggest reasons for success. The iPod? clickwheel. The iPhone/iPad? properly done touch interface. Or for that matter where it started: mouse + keyboard!

I think many of us, especially in the tech world, underestimate how crucial these kinds of innovation are for mainstream success. I recall people shrugging when the iPhone came out because 'we had touch devices before', for example, not realizing that there's a world of difference between the PDA-generation interfaces that required a stylus and the finger-touch interface of the iPhone.

Whether Apple's 'interface innovations' with the Watch are enough to make it a success remains to be seen, of course. But I strongly suspect that Apple is relying much more on these things to be a core part of the Watch' success than anything else.

I'd be really interested to hear from someone close to the Apple Watch, or who understands UX better than me on how much this accessibility was by design and how much it just naturally follows from good UX design.

One interesting point in review is that she is finding the function for sending heartbeat of small sketches useful. I think these were dismissed as more or less useless demo stuff right after the launch by some journalists.

Now when I think more, the sketches could be actually quite nice quick and discreet way of communicating with close friends. Quite quickly you would probably come up with simple symbols for various things.

Here could be a network effect that would help Apple sell more watches. Get an Apple Watch or you are excluded from the communications.

That's an interesting use-case for small-group tap messaging that I hadn't even considered. Time to write something for Wear!

Can someone tell me why when you pair you take a photo of the watch face? I'm guessing it just connects over bluetooth, so how does the photo help?

1) Slightly faster than requesting to pair with a BT device and entering a passcode.

2) Security benefits. Nobody can pair without being pretty obvious.

3) It’s a slick user experience. Feels like sci-fi when you do it. They could have used a QR code, but it’s like a swirling dots animation thing…

It's actually a video. The Watch plays a graphic that the iPhone parses (somehow) and pulls out pairing information. Once they've synced up, they play the same video before continuing on in the process. It was pretty slick.

Ah, cool! Thanks :)

Bluetooth pairing involves a four digit code (though many accessories just use 0000), so this eliminates the need for user interaction.

To read a QR Code with configuration in it?

Is the error page cached somewhere? I get Error displaying the error page [..] hehe

am i the only one getting a malware-warning when hitting the page? Might be avast though

Naah, it can't be true that Apple makes things that help people live their lives. They just make fancy baubles for rich assholes. Right?

Nice to see that accessibility is still being thought of, a lot of developers and designers take this type of stuff for granted.

However, I found this to be quite a "jarring" read, with "Apple Watch" being constantly written as such, seemed like an advertisement or at the very least just some SEO trickery. Disrupted my reading flow quite a bit

Why are people on HN so obsessed with this? People buy things and talk about them. Get over it.

That's the trouble with having a name like that. She does actually write "watch" in some places; she could possibly get away with changing a couple of the occurrences of "Apple Watch" to "watch", but changing some of them would lead to ambiguity with the other watch she was talking about.