So, today… I wrote up the sketching from last night, and would still love comments from anyone who can spare the time to look through them. In particular I'd like to hear feedback on the detail of it all.

I spent a few hours this afternoon putting together a card-and-paper model of some of the sketches; something which I can put in front of real people next week to test the ideas. I'm not sure how well this is working: maybe I just need a few more screens in there before it'll start to feel worthwhile. I'm worried that some of the interactions I have in mind (e.g. 2-finger pinches) in some spots will be quite tough to model in paper, too. Let's see.

I've also been thinking about the visibility of analogue displays (after getting a bit worried that I'd prematurely rejected the idea of a digital one), and did a little test - taking photos of analogue and digital using my camera phone, from the bedside and end of the bed. Here they are:

I can't see a bit difference in readability, myself. And I think there's more room for improvement in the analogue clock than in the digital one - in that the white circle around the clock-face distracts from the lettering, and could be made less prominent. So I'm a little bit less worried about going analogue for the UI now…

Comments

[Andy]

I find setting times slow and frustrating on most apps. Perhaps on an analogue clock face you need only two quick "strokes". One to put the hour hand in place and the next for the minute hand, rather than winding the clock.

[Tom Hume]

Winding around the face 6+ times to get the hour just right *is* painful. I'm wanting to address that by having the rate of motion around the clock vary depending on how near your finger is to the centre of the dial: you can zip round fast by drawing tighter circles, and slower with large motions around the edge. But I'm not sure how this would feel, it'll need prototyping.

However I suspect (and I've no evidence to bear this out) that once an alarm is set, it's only changed infrequently - maybe forward half an hour to get a lie-in, back half an hour to be up earlier... in which case moving hours and minutes with a single motion would be quicker (rather than having to reset both, when you move across an hour boundary, e.g. from 7:45 to 8:15).

Lots to test - and in-depth touch interactions are nasty to prototype on paper. I'm not convinced I've done a good job there, yet.

[Steve Devo]

My old colleagues at Autodesk have an app with lots of wierd clocks, not saying their any good but there may be some ideas there.
I assume they are mostly showing off using 3DStudio, Maya and other tools. Point is that for a night clock, especially during the middle of the sleep period (night tome normally, but not necessarily) the clock does not have to be read exactly, could be that knowing to the nearest 5 mins is enough, this makes it easier to make a highly visible and easily read design.
As long as near the alarm time, it converts to a more accurate display.

Don't forget that most phones have a proximity sensor that would let the clock know when your hand is near by.
Also physical actions to the phone like turning it over should register various actions like snooze, alarm off, go bright/dim etc.

Good luck

[Steve Devo]

oops - autodesk urls

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/time-fx/id417278259?mt=8

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=123112&id=16953811 (right at the bottom)