Exercise 5 - Emily

I love this alarm clock, it has all of the features you need in an alarm clock and none of the features you don’t need. The mapping is very well done. The buttons on the top left and top right control the hours and minutes, respectively, which makes sense because hours appear on the left side and minutes on the right. The snooze and light button is the large button on the top of the clock, which is pretty habitual, users are used to having snooze button on top with conventional alarm clocks. The dial on the face of the clock has four options: alarm off, alarm on, set time and set alarm. This constraint makes this clock very simple and void of any confusion. To set the time or the alarm, you simply turn the dial to the appropriate position and use the hour and minute buttons. To turn the alarm on or off, you set the dial to the alarm on or alarm off positions. Another great thing about this clock is that it is extremely portable, the stand that it sits on folds in to cover the dial, so you can transport it without accidentally changing the settings.

I hate this alarm clock. Besides that fact that it’s super bulky, gets dusty really fast and is unstable on a table (it tends to roll, which often triggers one of the sound buttons), it is really confusing to use. There are way too many buttons, options, and settings, and this lack of constraint makes it very complicated for the user to accomplish a simple task. The mapping is also very poorly done; the buttons do not visually correspond to their function so they all have to be labeled. To change any of the settings the user has to press the ‘mode’ button numerous times until they find the setting they want to change. Then they use the ‘select’ and ‘set’ buttons to select the object they wish to change. Some feedback is provided here because the selected area flashes. To set the alarm, the toggle switch on the top left has to be set to ‘sleep’. Then the user must press one of the sound buttons and adjust the volume. Once the sound is playing, the user flicks the switch to the ‘auto’ position to set the alarm. This is a very confusing process for a new user and there are no affordances that direct the user to go through this process. Overall, it is nearly impossible for a new user to figure out how to use this alarm clock unless they read the instruction booklet.