A Watchface Series

HUD ORBIT

Experience Design
UI/UX
AI Assisted Design
Lindsay Chow
A cohesive mecha-HUD telemetry system engineered for small-screen wearable micro-interactions.
Three smartwatches with black bands display unique, colorful circular interface designs: the left one shows 'MORNING 11:00' in yellow on brown concentric circles, the middle one shows a blue radar-style clock with orange hands and dots, and the right one shows a red and green-themed timer displaying 1:55.
The Brief

Mecha-HUD telemetry system

HUD ORBIT translates mecha cockpit telemetry into a modular, small-screen smartwatch design system. Over three weeks of critique-driven iteration, initial mixed-geometry concepts evolved into three standardized circular interfaces: Red, Yellow, and Blue Orbit. Lindsay leveraged Figma Make for AI-assisted animation prototyping, delivering a functional Figma build with dynamic face transitions, active tap states, and passive ambient HUD loops.

Three smartwatches with black bands display unique, colorful circular interface designs: the left one shows 'MORNING 11:00' in yellow on brown concentric circles, the middle one shows a blue radar-style clock with orange hands and dots, and the right one shows a red and green-themed timer displaying 1:55.

Design Challenge

The primary design challenge was translating dense mecha-HUD telemetry into an ultra-compact smartwatch format without sacrificing glanceable legibility for core metrics like time, charging status, and alerts. Fulfilling the micro-UI brief required balancing systematic cohesion with intentional functional variation across three watchfaces—Red, Yellow, and Blue Orbit. Overcoming this involved harmonizing mixed geometries into a unified circular framing system, tuning dark-mode contrast so glowing dial hands and secondary rings remained distinct, and leveraging Figma Make to prototype responsive radial micro-interactions, tap states, and ambient animations.

Three futuristic digital interface panels: left shows glowing turquoise concentric circles and tick marks on a grid background; center displays orange glowing mountain contour lines, circular and polygon radar charts, with coordinates and data; right panel is a blue radar screen with concentric circles and crosshairs over a world map and degree markings around the edge.
Design strategy

Visual System & Architecture

  • Design Language: Circular dial framing, dark coordinate grid backdrops, and high-density telemetry layers.
  • Red Orbit (Alert / Charging): Crimson background paired with high-contrast teal accents for system status and battery metrics.
  • Yellow Orbit (Focus / Digital Time): High-contrast amber digital layout centered on a radial fill ring and prominent time readout.
  • Blue Orbit (Radar / Telemetry): Deep cobalt dial combining an analog three-hand clock with an active 360° radar sweep.
Iteration

Critique-Driven

  • Lo-Fi Wireframes: Critique highlighted that a rectangular emergency readout broke visual continuity; replaced it with a circular radar sweep and removed extraneous outer borders.
  • Hi-Fi Phase 1: Reviewers noted poor contrast in monochrome palettes, tight digital kerning, and thin radar hands; adjusted typographic spacing, brightened the palette, and thickened the analog hands.
  • Final Refinements: Resolved ring-clipping issues on the red face; shifted accents to teal on Red Orbit and orange on Blue Orbit to achieve a cohesive, balanced triad.  
Three grayscale digital interface panels showing circular and rectangular HUD elements with segments, dials, bars, and grids arranged in square frames on a white background.
Three futuristic circular HUD interface designs in grayscale, each with segmented rings, geometric shapes, and radial grid lines, arranged side by side on a white background.
Three futuristic digital interface panels: the left panel shows a clock with yellow hands on a red circular grid; the middle panel displays the text 'MORNING 11:00' within a yellow segmented circular pattern on a brown background; the right panel depicts a radar screen with yellow dots and two bold yellow pointers on a blue circular grid.
Three digital orbit-style clock designs labeled Red Orbit, Yellow Orbit, and Blue Orbit: Red Orbit shows a clock at about 11:00 with red and teal interfaces; Yellow Orbit displays the time 11:00 AM with yellow circular patterns on a dark background; Blue Orbit features a blue radar-like circular design with clock hands pointing close to 4:00.
AI-Assisted

Prototyping

  • Tool: Figma Make
  • Workflow: Prompted an Apple Watch micro-animation simulating a spinning, luminous outer ring that fills the dial during a minute transition (10:59 to 11:00) using a strict four-color high-contrast palette.
  • Outcome: Used the generated asset to study radial timing, rotational physics, and bloom effects before assembling the final Figma prototype.

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