Weird UX: iPhone Alarm and Timer Apps
Weird UX spotted on the Apple iPhone.
Consistency and predictability make for good design. Users make mistakes when those factors aren’t in place. And when users, like my dad, make mistakes, they blame themselves for the error.
The Problem
One mistake I’ve been making repeatedly is snoozing my iPhone alarm when I intend to stop it. Sure, I’m not fully ‘with it’ when I wake up, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that the snooze button is in the same location as the stop button on the iPhone timer.
Although these buttons are nearly identical, their function is completely different. There is no consistency and no predictability.
While this may just seem like a silly annoyance, annoyances compound over time and cause users to abandon an app, website or brand.
Also, my husband, who remains sleeping after my alarm goes off, isn’t too keen on scrambling over to the other side of the bed to turn off the alarm we both thought was silenced.
The Solution
The Ellwood Digital solution is to avoid identical features that do different things.
Consider swapping the snooze button on the alarm for the stop button (to match the timer app), and then update the snooze button so that it has prominence on the screen.
Here’s what that might look like:
The Discussion
What are your thoughts? Have you mistakenly snoozed your alarm when you meant to stop it? Is there a better solution you have in mind to improve the design of this app?
I’d love to hear your thoughts about this. Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Icons made by Pixel perfect and Freepik from Flaticon.