Imagining Productivity Apps for the Apple Watch

App developers from Stockholm to San Francisco are anxiously counting down the days til the November release of the Apple Watch SDK (or “Software Development Kit”), which will give them the tools to begin building their own concepts.

I’d argue that these developers stand at a crossroads for the Internet of Things (IoT). Following one path, they can design the familiar types of apps that we already see on tablets and phones, simply scaled-down for a smaller screen. In doing so, they would treat the watch — and by default its wearer — as just another connected data-collecting “thing” among “things.”

Following an alternative path, developers would design for the humanity of the wearer, prioritizing individual intelligence over collective intelligence. For example, they would prioritize my needs (say to make a smart decision) over the data aggregator’s needs (desire to sell tailored ads, for instance), offering the user radically new insights and privacy safeguards — a non-negotiable trait for such an intimate device. On this path, developers would mine insights from cognitive science and UX about the distinctive ways body, brain, and things interact. People wouldn’t be seen as just another IoT node. Below, I describe some strategies and insights to get the conversation (and prototyping) started:

What the Apple Watch does that other connected things don’t do. Many analyst predictions and early use cases, including those from Apple, place watch apps in a continuous narrative; one in which software is adapted from one generation to the next. First there was email on your PC, then on your mobile phone, and soon there will be apps that tweak e-mail for the watch. The storyline appears not only with productivity tools like email, but also with predictive apps (which use algorithms to make recommendations based on context or behavior, like Pandora) and social apps (like Pinterest), too.

By contrast, discontinuous opportunities will arise for those who see the watch as distinctive. For instance, what does it mean to wear a computer, sensors, and accelerometers on your wrist?* How might one build new value-producing offerings based on the natural physical and cognitive behaviors that are characteristic of the way people move their arms and wrists?

Gesture-based productivity apps. Consider the way we naturally gesture as we casually chat with colleagues, deliver presentations, or brainstorm with engineers. Research shows that our gestures and brains work together as a so-called “coupled system” to advance thinking. “By materializing thought in physical gesture, we create a stable physical presence that… productively impacts the neural elements of thought and reason,” observes one study. In other words, these gestures actually help to reinforce neural pathways to and from our brains. Moreover, gesturing can have the effect of freeing up our mental resources to take on new tasks.

On the flip side, taking away a person’s ability to gesture has a drastic negative effect on a test subject’s ability to remember new information.

Potential Uses: One of the perennial challenges for any executive or entrepreneur is how to measure their own knowledge work productivity. This measurement is especially difficult on the frequent occasions when the user is not working at a computer: for example, when presenting at a strategy offsite or giving feedback to a direct report at the break station. Rather than appearing in digital format, these “offsite” cognitive outputs seemingly disappear into thin air. Using gesture as a possible indicator of productive thinking, a variety of apps could offer personalized feedback on away-from-screen trends to support a leader’s capacity to self-reflect and improve with data.

Gesture-driven predictive apps. Experimental research also shows that gestures are predictive. Increasing gestural movement can signal that a mental task or decision is becoming tougher to solve or understand — a dynamic suggested when we call a concept “tough to grasp.”

In these instances, gestures seem to warm-up (or preshape) our thinking for the mental heavy-lifting and learning ahead.

Potential Uses: More and more smartphone apps learn a user’s behavior and proactively make suggestions based on context and predicted needs. For example, when it’s time to get ready to catch a return flight, an app can suggest a cab service near your hotel and then pull up your boarding pass as you arrive at the airport. Many such apps, which essentially help users outsource thinking to a cloud’s predictive intelligence, will soon be rerendered for the Apple Watch, offering similar wine in a new bottle.

By looking to the predictive powers of gesture, however, developers can enable human intelligence in practical and radical new ways. In what situations (one-on-ones, conferences, or team meetings) am I learning new and challenging things, according to the data? Are there certain days or times when I am better at tacking tough mental tasks, which would help me reorganize my schedule and work routines in a less ad hoc way? Apps that begin to answer these sorts of question will create significant value for business users.

Social-gesture apps. One person’s gesturing can have measurable influence on the brains of others, creating a social-intellectual stimulus by activating “mirror neurons” in people nearby. For instance, when scientists collaborate, researchers find that gesture is particularly helpful for highlighting and exploring potential connections between different data visualizations, quantitative charts, and CT scans.

In this sense, a gesture acts as material anchor for groups trying to turn abstract information sources into well-grounded practical insights.

Potential Uses: You can expect all the big online social networks to have an Apple Watch app ready for download, but do you really need your Twitter feed or location-based Facebook offers on your wrist? A truly differentiated offering will give users insight derived from their real-world interactions and collaborations involving data visualization — an increasingly critical skill for most workers and entrepreneurs. Here’s a fundamental question a social-gesture app may begin to address:, What type of data visualizations drive the best sales team discussions and decisions? By combining gestural data with the ability to manually input the type of data viz used, an app could indicate that the bubble chart at Monday’s meeting resulted in a quantifiably more engaging discussion than the scatter graphs and heat maps from Thursday and Friday’s meetings respectively. Moving forward, you can then test the hypothesis that your team works best around bubble charts by incorporating them more frequently into sales meetings and tracking the impact on monthly revenue production. Of course, this is just one possible use of many in the area of information sharing and analysis.

The initial wave of development for the IoT has focused on reducing the need for mental resources, especially in industrial and operational processes, that could otherwise be automated with new smart devices. When considering the potential for the IoT and wearables in corporate or start-up settings, however, the focus needs to shift back to helping people make the most of the heads on their shoulders — in some cases through the things on their the wrists.

*I’d like to thank my colleague, Keith Rollag, who explored this question with me in a recent discussion. I’d also like to refer readers to this book from Oxford University Press, which is an excellent compendium of some of the key experimental studies cited above.