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User interfaces for watch apps differ significantly from user interfaces for phone apps. Watch apps should follow the guidelines on the Wear OS by Google design site and implement the UI patterns on that site, which ensure the following:

A consistent user experience across apps

An experience that is optimized for watches

This lesson provides information about creating attractive, custom UIs, including custom notifications for your watch apps.

Note: We recommend using Android Studio for Wear OS development, as it provides project setup, library inclusion, and packaging conveniences. This training assumes you are using Android Studio.

The Wearable Support Library, which is in the Google Repository in the Android SDK, provides classes that help you implement UI patterns and create layouts that work on round and square Wear OS devices.

Note that the following classes in the Wear support library are deprecated in Wear 2.0: