As I was leaving to go on a trip I found that my watch had stopped. So I left it behind to have the battery replaced. At the airport I looked around for a new watch. There was one place that had hundreds of watches on offer. Only one out of these hundreds had a face that was easy to read. What was this watch? It was an inexpensive Sekonda. In fact it was exactly the same model as the one I had left behind.
I was certainly not looking to buy the same model again. I had bought it the first time around because the face was easy to read - the same reason I bought it the second time even when I was not looking for it. Is it not extraordinary that out of those hundreds of watches only one had a face that was easy to read? And so the same watch came up twice - in two completely different places.
The purpose of a watch is to indicate the time. Obviously, the time has to be accurate. Today, with quartz movements, all watches are equally accurate. That a watch should be accurate is now almost taken for granted. The second most important thing is that the time should be communicated in an effective way.
This usually means a visual way. So why did these hundreds of watches fail miserably at this relatively simple task? What is the use of marking the time accurately if it is difficult to read what the time is? I have touched on this point on my website (which can be found at www.edwdebono.com, and also at www.edwarddebono.com) and am elaborating upon it here.
A watch face should be easily readable in poor light and by a person who might need reading glasses - but does not want to put them on just to read the time.
So why do ninety five percent (or more) of watches fail this simple test?
TOO SIMPLE
Having a watch face that is simple and easy to read does not allow a designer to flex his or her design muscle. Who needs a designer to produce a simple watch face? So there is 'design excess'. Design excess occurs when a designer seeks too hard to leave a 'design' imprint. The result may be clever-clever stuff which loses out on functionality. This happens over and again in the design world. Design becomes the fashion, and designers are given a free hand. Very soon everything is over-designed and people back away from design.
There is no situation in which design should harm functionality. That would be a true contradiction since design is meant to aid function. So 'design excess' is absurd.
DIFFERENT
If all watch makers produced watch faces which were simple and easy to read, then they might end up looking very much alike. So how could you tell one brand from another? So you make something different just for the sake of being different and so establishing a brand identity.
This is a serious matter for the watch producer who wants to sell more watches. It is a serious matter for the consumer who is offered watches that are less than functional in order to be different.
The solution is to seek to be different in areas that do not affect functionality: put an orange strap on watches, say.
NEW
Sometimes people want something new, partly out of boredom with the old and partly because new might be better. If the new watch looks almost exactly like the old watch, then how do you know it is new?
So variations creep in. Then there are variations on the variations. So in a process of 'design drift' the design drifts further and further away from functionality because each small change starts from a baseline which has itself already changed. It is not very likely that a change moves backwards towards the original design.
SPECIAL FEATURES
If a watch has special features like a stop-watch function, then the face may have to permit such features to operate. This may mean an alteration in the face away from simple readability. Add further features and the face gradually becomes a mess. Eventually you almost need a special course in order to be able to read your watch.
As with all the points mentioned, this is perfectly understandable. Nevertheless, at the end, the prime functionality of the watch should not be compromised.
TAKEN FOR GRANTED
It is easily taken for granted that a watch should be 'readable'. All watches are indeed readable. But how easily and with what effort? Why should I have had so much difficulty finding a watch that was easy to read? Fun, cuteness, cleverness, distinctiveness, etc. are all of value - so long as they do not diminish readability.
Things that are taken for granted soon disappear into the background and are no longer taken into 'design account'. It is assumed that they do not require attention, because they are so simple.
THE COMPLEXITY OF DESIGN
I have so often come across examples of design where the pursuit of one particular value has seriously impaired other equally important values.
Values do not stand still. It is not a matter of saying, 'I have put this piece of furniture in this corner, now let me place the other pieces'. As soon as you start dealing with other values you affect the values you think you have established.
A truly beautiful drinking vessel may be almost impossible to wash or even to hold. A sleek and elegant car that looks great in photographs may be very awkward to get in and out of. An after-dinner speaker may entertain with a string of jokes but end up saying nothing of any interest. The things that are easiest to do are also the things that are easiest to forget about. The problems that we have to puzzle over get most thinking time.
It seems to me that at the end of the design task, designers do not often just stand back and consider the whole design. They are so pleased with some clever little wrinkle that the broad picture becomes less interesting. PRIORITIESYou would think it should be simple for designers to have a list of priority values and to check against this list from time to time. If so the phenomenon of unreadable watches would never arise. PERHAPSMaybe I am wrong. Maybe the more complex a watch appears, the higher its 'technical promise'. So a readable watch is boring, traditional and old-fashioned. The complex-looking watch promises more. Maybe I am alone in wanting a watch with a readable face.
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