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Confused by the Apple Watch user interface? Here’s your handy quick-start guide

The Apple Watch user interface may grow to be second-nature in time, but almost everyone who has tried onemyself included – has found themselves somewhat bemused at first. Do you swipe the screen? Tap it or Force Touch it? Do you scroll with vertical swipes or using the digital crown? Do you single-press, double-press or press-and-hold the crown? And when do you use the contacts button (nope, it’s not just for contacts)?

Redditor macamacamac (I’m guessing he likes Macs) has put together a really handy visual guide showing exactly how you move between the different views … 

For example, you can see there are four main things you can do directly from the watch face: swipe down for notifications, swipe up for Glances, single-press the digital crown to display apps or Force Touch to customize the watch face.

In addition, there are three apps that are always available using the same input: single-press the contacts button to display your favorite contacts, double-press it to open Apple Pay and press-and-hold the digital crown to open Siri.

Apple has also provided a few Quick Tours showing detailed interactions with specific apps, although several are still listed as ‘coming soon’ ahead of the watch’s official ship date next Friday.

Click here to open the full-size version of the visual guide in a new window. Bonus meta points to the first person to turn the infographic into a watch app …

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Comments

  1. surfingarbo - 9 years ago

    That’s awesome. Very clear.

    Like most people, I’ve only played with the watch at the store so far. This infographic seems like it will help though.

  2. Odys (@twittester10) - 9 years ago

    I am guessing they thought that if you knew how to use iPhone home button you will be instantly familiar with digital crown on the Watch. Sounds like it works the same – single press to go to home screen. double press to switch between apps, long press to activate Siri. However, digital crown provides other interface actions – like you zoom in into an App, which of course has no familiar counterpart on iPhone. I think Apple needs to make interactive videos just about these new possibilities that crown brings. It should be like – here is familiar ways from iPhone, but crown can do more than that … Similar with Force Touch – completely new interface layer for iPhone users.

    • Ben Lovejoy - 9 years ago

      Yes, I think in use, the parallels with the iPhone will fall into place, but everyone I know who has tried one has been a bit lost at first.

      • rogifan - 9 years ago

        And if someone had never used an iOS device before they would probably be a bit lost at first too. It’s only so intuitive now because we’ve been using iOS devices for 7 years.

    • r00fus1 - 9 years ago

      Force touch seems not that much different from “long touch” on iOS, non? Except if you force-touch within an app, settings for that app will show up.

      I think this makes sense, though games hoping to use force touch may have to override that system-wide capability. I hope force-touch will be API reachable.

  3. Drew (@gettysburg11s) - 9 years ago

    Yep, seems simple to me. I am unsure how much I’ll use glances. For the weather, it seems simpler to just hold down the crown and ask Siri. Anyways, it will be fun to figure out the best ways to access what you use. For me, I’ll be using the fitness functions a lot, and Apple Pay, and of course Siri.

  4. the9th - 9 years ago

    Images of watch face waaay too small for old pfarts such as mydarnedself. And Access Zoom pixilates the thumbprints & captions beyond recognition. (fwiw)

  5. Graham J - 9 years ago

    If someone doesn’t get it from using it that diagram isn’t going to help.

    Just play with it for 15 minutes. Try things. It’s really quite intuitive.

    The digital crown button seems to be misunderstood though. If you’re beyond the home screen of an app it functions as a back button. From the app’s home it will take you back to springboard or whatever app you came from. When in springboard if the watch icon isn’t in the middle it will centre it. Then again will launch watch.

  6. barlen - 9 years ago

    I think having a dedicated button for “Favorite Contacts” is not that useful. Why not have the ability to make that button a favorite app or apps, so that you could get to Evernote for example with just one press, or perhaps give you a few favorite apps including contacts.

    • cleesmith2 - 9 years ago

      Why not do away with it altogether? Apple’s mice only have one button.

      • Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 9 years ago

        The white “mighty mouse” has left click, right click, middle click, and side squeeze. The “magic mouse” one has left, right, and two finger gestures. Even mac trackpads can be configured for left, right, and now force touch.

        I guess my point is that Apple hasn’t really had a one button mouse in a while.

        A better example is looking at the silencer switch on the iPhone. Most other phones don’t actually have that and Apple could have removed it. When it makes sense to have a button they have one. It didn’t make sense on the iPad anymore so they removed it.

        Apple must really think that accessing your contacts quickly is important. It also seems like the only way to draw to or tap people.

    • Gazoo Bee - 9 years ago

      I think it makes total sense if you think of the science-fiction concept of the “communicator” and then think of your iPhone and your Apple Watch as that. Especially the watch.

      If the Watch is a communicator, then a button to access the people you mostly communicate to makes total sense. It also seems very likely indeed, that the Watch will eventually supplant the communication abilities of the phone, which will then continue to be “all about the apps.”

      The Apple Watch is *never* going to be about the apps, it’s about communication.

    • Graham J - 9 years ago

      Totally agreed. I get that “great new interactions” are part of their sell but whether the device is primarily a communicator or something else is up to me. Ditto for double-click, especially since Apple Pay isn’t available outside the US.

      Please Apple, let us choose.

  7. Oflife (@oflife) - 9 years ago

    I have a Moto 360, (lovely hardware, so so software – and that’s Google’s fault for their useless UX skills in certain aspects of their ecosystem), and the way you interact with the watch are similar if not identical to the Apple Watch. You swipe in similar directions to expand on notifications, and of course, tilt the thing to activate and de-activate the display.

    Google Wear/Now is janky, and having played with an Apple Watch an hour before buying the 360 (I prefer the style and circular display of the Moto), it is clear that Apple at least have done what they do to most of their offerings and refined the experience so it works smoothly, unlike the unreliable flaky ‘guessy’ Google Wear/Now. I’m putting up with Google Wear because the voice control is superb. “OK Google, call Peter” “OK Google, navigate home.” all work very well, so you don’t really need to use the touch screen.

  8. Gazoo Bee - 9 years ago

    I don’t find this diagram to be very clear at all, but then I also don’t find the UI of the Apple Watch confusing either. The arrows, which seem to be there to designate navigation between the screens, seem to create a false equivalency between the faces and the apps. It also elevates the (rarely done and totally trivial) ability to change watch faces, and puts in on the same level as app interaction or launching apps. This just makes things more confusing than they need to be IMO.

    I’ve found that the best way to get your head around it, is to think of the Watch Face, the complications and the glances as a sort of “Widget display” running on top of what is otherwise a totally identical system to the iPhone. On the iPhone the app screen is also the home screen, on the Watch, the Face of the watch is the home screen, or at least residing on a “widget layer” on *top* of the home screen.

    The screen with all the apps is NOT your starting point, the Faces are. Apps are de-emphasised, because they are *secondary* on a watch.

    Imagine your iPhone lock screen is able to support watch faces and widgets just as many people have been asking for for years now. Now shrink that UI down to the watch size. That’s all you need to know to navigate the watch. The faces and complications are a widget layer on top of a fairly standard iOS UI.

  9. plooms - 9 years ago

    The buttons seem somewhat backwards from iPhone. You click what looks like a lock button to show your contacts, and double click the crown to show your watch face? You should click the contacts button to show the watch face (aka lock screen) and double click crown to show contacts. This is how it works on the phone, not sure why it’s opposite on watch. Will definitely take some getting used to.

  10. Josh Koterba - 9 years ago

    They really need to enable glances and notifications from every screen. Makes it annoying to have to go to the watch face to get to that stuff, when I’m used to getting to control center and notification center from anywhere on my phone.

  11. Some of the things in this diagram are wrong. For example, to get from apps display to watch face, you don’t double click the crown (though that might work) a single click is all that is required. Also, to return from the watch face selection screen, a normal tap on the watch face you want works, force touch not required to return.

    But the general flow and concept is okay. I just think this UI complexity is vastly overblown. I never used this watch before and within 2 minutes of playing with it at the store, I could access all these things. The only “gesture” I didn’t guess was double press crown to switch between most recently used apps and honestly I doubt I’ll get much use from that. Still, it’s good to know. Swiping from top or bottom was just natural from using iOS for as long as it has had that behavior. And the crown felt like the home button to a certain degree.

    Also, apparently the face as the automatic return point is customizable. I guess you can have it start out where you left off instead, if you want. I think that choice is going to be something I flip on for quite a while.

  12. Milorad Ivović - 9 years ago

    LOL

  13. nice guide :) i havent use the watch yet! but from videos and this guide it actually look really simple… im pretty sure ill get it all in the first day. I might play with it next to my charger. :D

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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