I’m writing today about one of the more amusing electronic gadgets in my possession, namely my alarm clock. I have an Emerson AC100 dual alarm clock (which seems to be not produced any more, judging in my difficulty in finding information about it online). By and large, I’ve done right by it. I really like the red LED display, which is sufficiently bright to see the time when I’m looking at it, but not so bright that it’s distracting when I’m actually trying to sleep. The automatic time setting feature is a great convenience (although it screws up daylight savings). It’s relatively easy to change the alarm settings how I want it.
But that’s not what I’m writing to talk about today. What I’m writing about today is the button configuration and how that affects your sleeping habits. Here’s a guide stolen from the reference manual (’cause I’m too lazy to take a photo):
Emerson AC100 radio
Notice the snooze button (number 10) and the buttons to actually turn the alarm off (numbers 16 and 17, depending on which alarm is ringing). Pretty big size differential between them, no? Just out of curiosity, I actually measured them. The alarm buttons are circles with about a 1/4-inch diameter, giving them a total surface area of 1/8 * 1/8 * pi, or roughly .05 square inches. The snooze button measures 4 inches wide by 1/2 inch tall. If it were a rectangle, it would measure 2 square inches, but it’s smaller than that because of the curvature. Let’s say it’s 1.5 inches. So, that means that the snooze button is 1.5 / .05 = 30 times the size of the alarm button! Furthermore, the snooze button has a distinctive shape and location, whereas the alarm buttons are shaped and positioned in exactly the same fashion as buttons which do things that are completely unrelated, such as adjusting the clock time and time zone.
So, the bottom line is – when the alarm goes off, which of these buttons do you think is getting pushed? Especially in the dark, groggy first moments of your morning? It’s like they made this alarm clock for people who don’t want to get up at all, and just want to hit the snooze button every few minutes.
I suppose making the snooze button easy to find is good because really, it would suck if you just wanted those few more minutes and you were half awake by the time you hit the button. But making the button which will actually let me get started with my day hard to find? No wonder people hate mornings.