Open Radar

 
Summary:
There should be a way to dismiss a notification without touching the screen.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Be in the middle of doing something.
2. Receive a notification you want to dismiss.

Expected Results:
There’s a way to get rid of it without touching the screen, for instance, by quickly rotating the watch away from your body.

Actual Results:
There is no such mechanism.

Notes:
I’m sure the article has been circulating in the office where someone discusses trying to use the Watch while riding a bicycle: it worked just great until he received a notification, which he couldn’t dismiss without taking his other hand off the handlebars. This is one of many problematic use cases where the user’s free hand is busy and can’t dismiss a notification that’s covering the watch face or running app. I heard the ATP folks discussing using your nose or tongue to handle these kinds of cases.

It’d be much better to have some kind of touch-free gesture that could dismiss a notification. The one I have in mind consists of quickly rotating your wrist towards the top of the screen, hard enough that the watch wants to jiggle a little on your wrist. This is easy to do if you’re trying to, but unlikely to be done accidentally.