The watch's User Interface design needs to be improved. I now own an S70, and had an S42 before this. While I love the golf features, the one that has irked me the most is how it is way too easy to Delete your scorecard after a round, even though there is 18 holes of data in it. This happened to me on two games (so 18 holes x 2 different rounds) so far. After the last hole, I tap at the bottom of the screen to enter the strokes, putts, etc. The watch does lag quite a bit for the last tap, and sometimes, I thought that I had not tapped yet, so tap an extra times. 2 of these times, it did actually recognise the tap, but was just lagging. So it forwarded to the next screen, and it so happens that that position of the tap was to Discard the Scorecard instead of save. Resulting in the scores being deleted!! Absolutely horrible UI design.
I have several suggestions to improve the watch's UI.
- Do not "hide" the Discard between two other choices (between Edit Score and Pause Round). Fingers are fat, users are tired, and may not be accurate. A simple mishit (e.g. when trying to pause the round or edit the scorecard) can result in the whole scorecard being discarded! Seperate it so that chances of mishit are very low (e.g. put a space/seperator between the last menu item and the Discard option).
- When there is data in the scorecard, Ask for Confirmation of Discard. Use the same interface as when the round is starting "Save Score" - and No and Yes are put at opposite ends of the screen - top and bottom. No chance of choosing the correct one. So after Discard is selected, show the confirm screen Yes/No, that allows users to be very intentional when deleting.
- Get rid of the current UI - where options are just all in a row, and you have to scroll up and down. This UI is too easy to have mishits - because fingers relative to the size of watch screen makes it prone to inaccuracies and mishits. Use more space (e.g. 4 corners of the watch face, scroll through entire screens for each option, etc) so that there is less chance of unintentional option choices. There are many alternative UI methodologies in smart watches, so study some of those and adopt a better one.
- Consistency - I'm wondering why the "Save Score" UI is different from most others? That screen is good. But after that, most of the screens - e.g. to save strokes/putts, change holes, view green, update pin position, etc, seem a bit chaotic. So it's a bit hard to navigate. Was the functionality properly user tested? It seems that there should be much better alternatives.
Other than that, the watch giving me the distance to pin is wonderful. Don't get me wrong, I love the watch. I'd just like to make it even better!
