A no-code tool for watch-face designers
Galaxy Watch Studio, first released as Galaxy Watch Designer (GWD), is Samsung’s desktop tool for making Galaxy Watch faces and selling them on Galaxy Store. Without it, a watch face is a Tizen app written in code. When I joined, Studio could already import artwork and assemble layers, data and animation without code. What it could not do was show whether a face actually worked.
Creators kept saying the same thing: we can’t see it working
After the beta, I read reviews on fan sites such as myGalaxyWatch, community threads on Naver Cafe and the YouTube tutorials creators were sharing, then interviewed top sellers. Drawing the face was rarely the problem. Not being able to see it work until it was on a watch was.
The pain point: testing happened outside the tool
A watch face is a live product. It has to read correctly at 7 a.m. and at midnight, at full battery and at 5%, at rest and mid-workout. Checking it meant leaving the canvas, building to a watch and coming back. With no way to see changes in real time, that loop got in the way of making, so I set out to bring the check into the canvas.
I built Run to sit next to the canvas. Every edit shows on the watch as it is made, with the strap on or off, in always-on, and while it animates.
Device view checks real size, dial view checks the edges, always-on checks the low-power version and playback checks motion, all without leaving the workspace.
Testing became part of building
Creators no longer had to finish a face to find out whether it worked. Alongside Run, I refreshed the workspace’s visual design so the tool felt as considered as the faces made in it.
Next projects.
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