Performance load and my new watch.

This is my new watch. It’s a Nike Triax Mia. It’s a sports watch, but I bought it mainly because of the industrial design. I love the fluid, futuristic look (I can just see a design studio wall plastered with preliminary sketches – yummy!). I also love how it wraps around my wrist so that the face rests almost parallel to my radius and ulna. This would constitute, in my opinion, white space as it occurs in industrial design. How the object rests in space makes it easy to read, thus creating white space in the mind of the user. They’re not burdened by the extra cognitive load needed to figure something out. Or the physical discomfort caused by having to twist your arm around in order to read your damn watch.

In terms of performance load, however, this design could use some work. According to my very informative book, Universal Principles of Design, performance load dictates that "the greater the effort to accomplish a task, the less likely the task will be accomplished successfully."

Well, this happened with this watch, but not for reasons you might imagine (i.e., that there are too many functions on the watch lacking intuitive controls). You can’t see them in this photo, but at each rounded corner of this watch are little buttons you use to adjust the functions. I figured out the menu system pretty quickly, but when it came time to hold the buttons down to make the adjustments, it was difficult; it required a high kinematic load. For some functions, you have to press one button and hold for three seconds while simultaneously pressing another to make the adjustment. Being  5’11", I don’t have the most dainty fingers, so finding the center of the tiny side buttons was a bit difficult. Then once I did find them, the metal buttons gave hardly any tactile feedback. Once I was finally able to push them, I couldn’t really tell – haptically, anyway – if I was or not. Luckily, I got feedback from the screen.

Nonetheless, it was very hard to set the alarm. Which is why I’ll continue to rely on my cell phone or the dogs to wake me up; whichever needs to go to the bathroom first! Haha.