I recently re-listened to an episode of This American Life titled It’ll Make Sense When You’re Older. It’s another great episode of TAL — a series of segments covering how we deal with our own knowledge at the various stages of our lives.

The segment that struck me is Act Four. Host Chana Joffe-Walt speaks with Carl Duzen and his wife about his Alzheimer’s. Carl has a graduate degree in Physics, so the idea that he can no longer draw a simple analog clock has its obvious frustrations. It wasn’t until Carl broke down the make up of the analog clock into the “Superposition of three types” that he understood how it truly worked — meaning he could understand how to read it. He can’t read it at a glance like many of us, but with some time he can work it out with the system he’s learned.

Listening to them break down the make up of an analog clock face, Joffe-Walt’s frustration is not unwarranted —

“And by the end of all this, I just feel like, what the hell, clock?”

We predominantly read time left-to-right — Hours, Minutes, Seconds — yet a traditional clock face places a level of importance on the minute hand. This is evidenced by Duzen’s reaction to first notice the longest hand on the clock. I’d argue that importance then moves to the hour hand given earlier clocks that follow this design pattern often didn’t have second hands, followed by the second hand which, when present, is often a far thinner than the others.

“It’s a miracle anyone can ever just glance at their wrist and capture information, something Carl works very hard at.”

But is it?

Granted, the numbers 1-12 around a clock clearly don’t help Duzen’s confusion but what they don’t touch on is what I believe to be part of the reason Duzen can’t glance at a clock face like the rest of us. He no longer has the context many of us are afforded when we look at a clock face. That context helps us with the first step in reading a clock face — the current time. Since listening to the episode for the first time a year ago, it made me look at my watch differently and I realised that the majority of the time, I’m only looking at my watch for the minutes hand… I generally have an idea of what time of day it is and I’m just looking for an indicator to round me off from what I think it might be.

I’d imagine that was the idea behind the initial design of the more traditional clock face we know today. From sundials to clock towers to analog faces and onwards, our ability to tell time has merely gotten more accurate as we’ve progressed. But the analog face seems to have developed minutes somewhere around the 15th century, where it seems ringing clock towers were relatively common. Every time we visit my parents' house, I have a more accurate idea of what the time is throughout the day — they have a clock that chimes every hour which gives me just enough context when I later glance at my watch. I can’t help but feel that this might have been part of the driver of making the minute hand more prominent and is an important lesson when designing anything —

Is the most important thing presented to the user first?

It should always be at the front of any thought about information hierarchy or usability of something. Maybe in its final form it will be confusing for a user at first, but consider their use of it in longevity when designing it — what is the context of the user at that point?

I’ve been driving a Mazda for a bit over a year and when I first got the vehicle, I found the navigation menu structure seemed like it was thrown together — the order didn’t make sense.

It felt like Navigate Home belonged at the top — I couldn’t even tell you why I felt like that now — possibly because it seems like such a primary thing. But over time, I’d argue I probably use these different options almost exactly proportionatly to the order they’re structured in.

If I need to use the navigation, it’s generally because I need to Find [an] Address I need to visit and I need a route. Often enough, but not always, I’ll leave that address and need to Navigate Home given I’m probably somewhere new. From time to time, I need to Find Places like nearby petrol stations et al. I have a few saved Favourites — places I often visit but don’t often need directions to. Although I’d argue that this might get used as much, or even just a tad more than the above option, there’s a button for the favourites next to the physical control in the console.

Ordering of things like this seems pointless. But I didn’t notice how well it was structured until I thought about it — and I’m just the sort of person that would end up hating it when I inevitably found it frustrating.

The prevalence of this type of design thinking is growing, but it’s still far from the norm. In iOS, the ability for app icons to incorporate a dropdown are another great example. Opening an app is the primary and thus easiest action, but by 3D touching apps that utilise the feature, some of the primary actions can be quickly reached. I’ve used this with Shazam countless times, as I rarely have any need to open the app itself.

I regularly use the Westpac app and while the app itself isn’t bad, it misses out on helping me skip a few steps by not prioritising what I believe would be the primary function for most users. When I click the Pay & Transfer tab, I get the screen on the left. However I’d happily be proven wrong that almost all users would be clicking the tab to actually perform what the tab suggests. So give me the screen on the right, with the option to view upcoming payments.

It’s just one little gripe, but can be easily fixed or else becomes one of those things that gets annoying with repetitive use. And when I say little gripe, I mean a tiny gripe.

Don’t sweat the small stuff, but get a little exercise.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in Duzen’s position, other than frustrating beyond belief. His story makes you appreciate the difficulty of learning, understanding or teaching anything that we take for granted out of habit or simplicity. But it’s an important use case to consider in the design process because we need things to make sense, and be in the right order, to provide the best possible experience.

With a young daughter that will obviously need to — or at least should — learn how to read an analog watch face in a few years, I’m not sure where to start. But I anticipate it being difficult… given that technically, it starts at twelve 🤔.