It sounds like a fun, useful idea to have all your smartphone notifications delivered right to your Watch, until it isn’t. The core pitch here was convenience and less usage of your smartphone. But on the flip-side, it just makes you more aware of what’s happening on your smartphone. And it cancels out convenience by drawing your attention to notifications that don’t need you immediately or to those you can’t deal with on a smartwatch.
What warrants the urgency & the glanceability of Smartwatch Notifications?
Both iOS and Android allow for a lot of granular controls over your Notifications. I customize it opportunistically: turn off or de-prioritize it as they arrive. Now with Notifications there are 3 kinds:
- Those that needs to be pushed at you with a sound or a vibration,
- Those you choose to pull out as it waits for you to check your phone,
- Those you don’t need in the first place and must be turned-off.
- and there’s a fourth type: Notifications as Widgets. (but more on this later).
Of the three, the first kind is what needs to appear on your Smartwatch. Now as we become increasingly more aware of our smartphone usage, fewer notifications make the cut. Having your phone on silent by default is becoming increasingly normal as people put a higher value on their attention.
Chat notifications are antithetical to what chat is supposed to be: a mode of asynchronous communication. You can always reply later, and better with chats. Though sometimes, we do chat synchronously and notifications is designed for that. I instead like HomeScreen widgets, a place where new messages arrive, waiting for me to pull out and indulge the same way I do with e-mails.
Anything urgent can and shall be communicated through calls. And calls is what you should definitely screen on your watch. This directs to the core point: a smartwatch more seriously asks the question, “What immediately requires your attention?” I would instantly put calls, alarms, timers and reminders in the list. All of which are innately time-based.
Where the problem gets trickier are situations where notifications are not directly attached to time, but the intention behind is. This is where I wish for a SmartWatch to help but it often doesn’t. Take this for example:
In daily life, there are situations where you’re waiting for a status update via text. Like if a friend made it home or if a package arrived. Another is group chat notifications while managing an event, being on a trip, being in amusement parks, etc. I wonder if I would ever get into a habit of ephemerally turning on notifications for that scenario. Perhaps, this is something we can design for. We don’t know if that will be adopted as a convention and if it will be incisively used.
A majority of the notifications delivered by Apps these days needs to be completely turned off. This includes offers, the “we haven’t seen you in a while” kind, “this is trending” etc.
Some are simple status updates like “your order is in transit”. This is usually pulled out, and glanced at.
Now, I am not about to put much value on “but I can pull out notifications on my wrist instead of reaching for my phone.” I briefly entertained this idea for checking up on Uber. Though, the only notification that was worth it was “your Uber has arrived” and that value soon diminished for I would usually be on my phone anyways. In fact, we seldom forget our phones. They are always nearby, and Smartwatch is not a very good substitute by being nearer. It’s a non-solution to a non-problem.
A device must substitute for a use-case, instead of piling on.
This brings us to the fourth kind: “Notifications as Widgets”. This includes turn-by-turn navigation, music player, live scores, etc. It is these scenarios where smartwatches can usefully substitute a smartphone. The glance-ability & accessibility of smartwatches plays the key role here.
As of now, smartwatches still stand on a weak foundation of convenience with few discernible user flows to monopolize. All of this is to say, in a world where we’re already carrying a computer with us all along:
We’re better off without notifications synced to our watches.
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abhishek1point0 
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