2010-03-21

What's a suitable feature for an alarm application?

I've an alarm application published in the Android Market, named OpenAlarm. It has a feature that asks people simple math addition problem to wake them up. Some people email me some interesting ideas about this application. Here are some examples,
  1. Harder math question because current one is too simple.
  2. Flip the phone to snooze alarm.
These two features sound like reasonable. But, I prefer not to add feature 2.


Recently, I've been studying iPhone User Interface Guidelines strongly recommended by some successful iPhone killer app authors. I must admit that it is a very good material not just for iPhone but for all mobile platforms. As this document suggests the first thing you must decide when you're developing an application is to come up a product definition statement that concisely defines application's main purpose and intended audience.

For OpenAlarm, I've been thinking what product definition statement it has? It might sound like,

   An easy-to-use alarm application that tries every means to wake people up.

If this is its product definition statement, then feature 2 should not be implemented because it's too kinda natural for people to flip a phone. :)