I would assume that design element came up during the 2 yr design phase…
Developing The Bradley:
Over the past two years we have tested and prototyped version after version of the Bradley. Each iteration evolved fromgroup interviews and co-design sessions with people from many different backgrounds.
It makes sense to me, but that is me... I usually know what hour it is, I just don't know what fraction of the hour it is.
Edit:
6) Why is the minute ball bearing in the inner track and the hour ball bearing in the outer (side) track? This seems counter-intuitive to people who are used to regular watches.
The decision was from user groups testing result. We realized that when people check time, we check the minute first because we usually have good sense of the hour. So, when people touch it (or see it), they know the minute immediately. Then, if you still want to check the hour, you check the hour ball bearing (by touching or seeing).
Why is the minute ball bearing in the inner track and the hour ball bearing in the outer (side) track? This seems counter-intuitive to people who are used to regular watches.
The decision was from user groups testing result. We realized that when people check time, we check the minute first because we usually have good sense of the hour. So, when people touch it (or see it), they know the minute immediately. Then, if you still want to check the hour, you check the hour ball bearing (by touching or seeing).
@crenquis and @daneel thanks for the link, glad to know the official answer.
my main point still stands that you could see and feel both with fairly accurate resolution in an instant if the front was hours that moved towards the next hour as the minutes progressed, and get a more accurate minute by checking the side when you need the exact minute. it still would have met their requirement and reason for switching it without any of the drawbacks. everyone would be able to tell time a lot more accurately if it was the way i originally expected it to be. enough people must expect the same thing if their own faq describes it as “counter-intuitive” in the question.
Personally i generally don’t already know the hour in many situations, when i awake, when i’ve been working heads down, etc. either way this reversal makes the watch useless to me and took it from a must have item to something i’d never wear or use. i hope someone makes a similar watch that is equally attractive with it the other way around.
You can see the hour hand just fine when looking at the face of the watch. The edge of the ball juts out from the edge of the watch,
We may have different aims when looking at a watch. You say you glance at it to get a “general ideal” of roughly what hour it is, and that you would only look at the minute hand if you wanted to get a more accurate minute. In contrast, I’d say I generally know roughly what hour it is, and I look at a watch in order to know the minutes. If I see it’s a quarter past, it’s very rare that I say “a quarter past what?!? 3? 4? 6?” But it doesn’t matter if I am that spacey, because I can see the hour hand trivially.
The inner hand is much easier to feel precisely, because of the way you can roll your finger from the ball to the raised markers. I can distinguish between 16 minutes past and 17 minutes past the hour. There’s no need for this kind of precision on the hour hand.
In contrast to how easy it is to see the hour hand, however, I will say that it’s hard for me to feel the hour hand without looking. Again, though, that doesn’t bother me much because I generally know the rough hour (and because I can see the hand, and am not blind).
Thanks for sharing your experience and feedback. I’d agree, I do think our uses do differ, many people often relate to common objects in very different ways. That is the problem with the tradeoff that they made when they switched the locations during the development phase.
My main point where i disagree with the design is i don’t think you need to accept any of the tradeoffs or go with the backwards counter-intuitive layout at all. During the development phase, the reason they switched from the design we all naturally would expect to the backwards “counter-intuitive” design as they call it, was because they were trying to solve a design/functionality issue that the users who tested their watch had. Fine I get that, but that is a pretty major tradeoff to make, improve one issue at the cost of another. Improve the functionality for one usage style while eliminating the functionality for another usage style altogether. I think there was a better way to solve it, with no downside or tradeoff, that would work for both usage groups.
This is where I disagree with their choice. I think that the switch was unnecessary and that there was an even better, more elegant solution to the issue that wouldn’t require any tradeoffs at all. A design solution that could have been all win.
If the inner bearing showed hours and moved towards the next hour smoothly based on minutes, then for 95% of all applications you could see or feel the time down to a few minutes of accuracy with a single bearing, improving the at a glance and quick feel functionality. Most of the time the front bearing would be all that would be needed by anyone, whichever way they use a watch.
