Alan Dye and Stan Ng Talk About the Design of Apple Watch Series 7

David Phelan scored an interview about Apple Watch with Apple execs Alan Dye (VP of interface design) and Stan Ng (VP of product marketing for Watch):

When asked just how they decide how small a font or other element can go, Dye said: “I think everyone felt like we could go a bit larger in terms of the hardware, but we never wanted to compromise what is a foundation principle of the Watch which is the interchangeable strap system. It was quite a huge process to get those two goals to work in concert. Typography is something we obsess over. I’m lucky enough to have an amazing typography design team built into my team and we really started that with Apple Watch because we understood the huge challenge of getting as much content as possible on a small display. I think we had pretty good instincts on the team but we do work with others throughout the company, to get a feel for just how small we can go with the typefaces. You’d be surprised, some people really appreciate very small text. So, we kind of pushed the boundaries.”

Headlining this interview “Design Secrets of Apple Watch Series 7 Revealed” was a bit of a stretch, even by today’s clickbait-y standards for breathless headlines — but there are some interesting insights. Basically, the goal for Apple Watch Series 7 was exactly what we thought: to fit noticeably bigger displays into not-so-noticeably bigger watches.

★ Wednesday, 3 November 2021