Glances

How do you deal with incoming calls or similar disturbances while driving the bicycle? Today a bicyclist in front of me demoed his reaction, taking up his phone and trying to interact with it while almost creating an accident with other bicyclists. More proper would be to ignore it, and if you felt it was important, find a place to stop and check it.

Glances provide a second option: you can have a glance on your watch. It’s a disturbance, but better than fumbling one-handed with your phone. But there can be no interaction: your other hand is firmly on the steering wheel and the hand on the watch arm cannot interact with it. So there all the sudden the interaction that is making a short glance into a long glance comes in. Looking at the watch a bit longer can provide additional information about the disturbance, making it easyer to make the call of whether to stop and take care of it, or keep on cycling.

I’m curious to see how long a long glance is, how well glances and bike-riding or car-driving works together (probably still a better idea to focus on what you were doing), and how we can use touch-less interactions initiated by a glance.