A watch that uses ball bearings to create a face that can be read by the visually impaired is one of the front-runners for Designs of the Year 2014, but has also proven popular with a broader market (+ interview).
Built from solid titanium, the Bradley Timepiece was designed by the team at new watch company Eone. It creates a tactile experience with ball bearings that rotate around the face on two tracks instead of hands, creating a braille-like experience for reading hours and minutes.
The idea for the watch came out of research showing that partially sighted and blind people were buying designer timepieces that they couldn’t use and then using their phone to tell the time or relying on obtrusive talking watches.
“We thought about how we could make a fashionable watch that would also work for tactile users and hopefully appeal to a larger audience of everyday users,” lead designer David Zacher told Dezeen at last night’s Designs of the Year 2014 exhibition launch.
“If you respect the user group you are designing for and keep in mind that you are trying to design something that is superb, not just for that user group but for mainstream use, I think that the result is exemplary design,” he said.
Although the watch was originally designed with the visually impaired in mind, the majority of responses the designers have received don’t have anything to do with vision impairment, according to Amanda Sim, head of graphic design and marketing for Eone.
“People just think it’s a beautiful and eye catching watch,” she said.
Having fulfilled the orders from the watch’s original Kickstarter funding drive, it is now available to pre-order in the UK, US and Canada. But demand has been so high that it will also soon be available across Europe and in Asia as well.
Discover more innovative watches with Dezeen Watch Store.
Below is an edited transcript of the interview with David Sacher and Amanda Sim of Eone:
Marcus Fairs: So tell us what this product is and how the idea came about.
David Zacher: It’s a tactile watch that was designed with users who are blind in mind. We started out thinking about what kind of watch or time keeping device would work for blind users and we struck upon this idea of using ball bearings rotating around a track to indicate the minutes and the hours on the dial.
Marcus Fairs: I heard you saying before how blind people would buy fashionable watches and then listen to their SIRI reading out the time.
David Zacher: We did a tremendous amount of user research. We found users who had a talking watch which is quite loud and a little embarrassing to use in a public place like a classroom say. So that was one piece of intel that we gained and as we went further into it we found users who were wearing fashion watches, even though they couldn’t tell the time. They were using their iphones to tell the time. So we thought about how we can make a fashionable watch that would also work for tactile users and hopefully appeal to a larger audience of everyday users.
Amanda Sim: The watch is built from solid titanium, it comes in a range of different watch bands in stainless steel as well as canvas and leather. It’s built for durability, its easier to clean, easier to fix, but we’re marketing it as the gentleman’s watch. So it’s built for discretion and it’s all about the modern man who needs to be couth and gentlemanly but somehow always knows where he needs to be and what time it is.
David Zacher: So check whether he needs to leave without letting anyone know.
Amanda Sim: Exactly.
Marcus Fairs: So you developed this when you were at RISD. Is that right?
Amanda Sim: Yes in graduate school, at the Rhode Island School of Design. We were randomly approached by our founder in the MIT MEA program at the time and he’s very much interested in projects for social good. But Eone timepieces is a for profit company because we believe the proceeds of what we make from this watch can be fed into improving innovation and products for impaired users.
David Zacher: And we worked really hard to try and keep the price point of it as low as possible. To keep it as accessible as we possibly can. That’s where we see the social bit.
Marcus Fairs: Where is it out in terms of development? Is it a product that is available and ready for order?
David Zacher: We recently finished fulfilment on our Kickstarter orders so it’s in production and it’s currently available for preorder in the UK, US and Canada with delivery in June.
Amanda Sim: But in June it will be available in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, South Korea, the US, Canada and throughout Europe.
Marcus Fairs: And what has been the response so far from blind people and non blind people?
David Zacher: Oh it’s been wonderful, we’ve gotten great response from all over the world from our Kickstarter funders and the community that has come to support us has been amazing.
Amanda Sim: And a majority of the responses don’t have anything to do with vision impairment, people just think it’s a beautiful and eye catching watch.
Marcus Fairs: Do you think this is a kind of philosophy that could be expanded, designing things for people with some kind of impairment but aimed at a wider market?
David Zacher: Definitely, we never would have hit on this idea of using ball bearings to tell time if we hadn’t been solving for that problem, so I can see a broader application in products that follows that same approach, of inclusively designing something.
If you respect the user group you are designing for and you are keeping in mind that you are trying to design something that is superb not just for that user group but for mainstream use, I think that the result is exemplary design and the key word that always comes around in our design critiques is ‘inclusive design’. It’s all about the best, for the most, for the least. It’s the Eames model.
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watch design has wide appeal appeared first on Dezeen.
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