We now know Apple will be releasing their Watch in April. While we wait, there continues to be a lot of speculation about why consumers will fall in love with this new product category, which of the features will prove to be the most valuable and how brands, applications, and services can take advantage of this exciting new wearable platform.

This week, I was able to attend a panel in Portland on the future of wearables. About half way through, it dawned on me that not one of the four panel members or moderator had given Android Wear a meaningful test drive. They had all seen it, held it, read about it, but not one had really tried it. And yet, the panel seemed perfectly comfortable speculating for over an hour on what features in the Apple Watch would be delivering a great user experience and how users would find the Watch valuable. This really surprised me because the panel of experts was speculating about features that are available to test run today…on Android Wear.

If you take the time to really try Android Wear for a week or so, as I’m advocating, you can gain meaningful insight into what makes a great user experience and what makes a horrible user experience on the wrist. You get to explore what Apple is trying to do on a platform that has more similarities than differences. (Both devices support stand-alone apps, notifications with actions, watch faces, and health monitoring.)

To get to mass adoption, a device needs to present real value to users.

We can never underestimate Apples ability to blow up the market and take a product category mainstream. To get to mass adoption, however, a product needs to present real value to users. If you don’t deliver real value though a great experience, consumers won’t refresh, recommend, or replace. Look no further than the iPad to see this principle in action.

A common theme among the panel members and and other tech junkiescan be summed up as “We don’t know! There will be applications we’ve never dream of today. No one could have predicted how the iPhone would revolutionize mobile. Who knows how Apple Watch will revolutionize the wrist!” Which is true…but it’s also an easy cop out. Why not put a stake in the ground and have an informed opinion? After using Android Wear for a week, I think it’s pretty easy to get a taste of what is going to work or not work in this new wearable product category. You should really give it a try. (Warning: in order to carry out this experiment, you’ll have to put down your precious iPhone 6 for a few days. You’ll live you poor thing. You will.)

Trying it out

There are fairly obvious things you’ll notice after a week with Wear. You can’t do a lot. You really can’t. On such a small screen, whether using gestural interaction of Wear (or by the scrolling a wheel on Apple Watch), hunting for applications is painful. I can’t imagine users proactively using more than a few applications. Users are going to expect information to come to the surface—don’t design for them to come to you.

The other thing you’ll notice is that there is as much social awkwardness looking at a watch as there is looking at a phone. One of the selling points of any smart watch is that you don’t have to pull out your phone out of your pocket to see incoming information. But looking at your watch has its own loaded social cue, namely that you’re bored. I imagine a lot of users will actually wear it on the inside of their wrist to make glancing at it less noticeable. Which is dorky, but saves you some awkward moments. (And if you don’t want to look dorky, perhaps you should pass on the whole smart watch trend all together.)

This often repeated promise of “not having to pull out your phone” leads me to my biggest problem with the form factor: what I’m calling the notification paradox.

The Notification Paradox

The panel in Portland waxed on about notifications coming to your wrist will reduce the need to take out your phone. There’s this collective notion that somehow bundling a few actions inline with notifications will provide a quick, easy way to respond to incoming messages. And tools like voice or the heartbeat will present new ways of interacting without having to take out your phone.

It ends up being self defeating and actually makes the watch something that is very easy to put down.

Again, you can experience a lot of this on Wear today…and while technically true, it does not create a revolutionary experience. In fact, it ends up being self defeating and actually makes the watch something that is very easy to put down. That is why I call it the Notification Paradox.

You can categorize notifications into two buckets: Important, or those I care about in the moment, and unimportant, those i don’t care about in the moment and actually would rather not see.