Challenge

So a couple years ago I had an idea: What would it take to make an alarm clock that instead of people dreading, they looked forward to it going off. I started by creating an alarm clock app for my mother that gave her a video from me when it went off. She LOVED it. However, the idea didn’t scale well. I mean, SOME people like me, but it wasn’t an idea for the general public. 

Solution

Then drawing inspiration from my own LGBT community, I thought: “Drag Queens!” Who would’t want to wake up to funny and motivational video messages from drag queens? So that’s what the alarm clock became. The user can set their alarm and every morning they get a different video message from a drag queen. You can see the iOS app here.

Insights

This app has been so much fun to produce, discuss, and share with others. One problem I encountered for a while was feature-creep. There has been a ton of temptation to keep adding and adding features and functionality. For a while the app became bloated and complicated. I’ve had to actively push back against the pull of “more!” by making simplicity a core philosophy.

From a design perspective this app has helped me grow a lot too. I started doing my own UI design a couple years ago and one thing I’ve struggled with is subtlety. I tend to use a lot of bold high-contrast color choices to clearly indicate to the user things like “This is a button.” and “This section of information is different.” and while that is a win in terms of clearly indicating function, the resulting designs tend to look far from elegant or sophisticated. This app has lead me to explore more about how using different shades of the same color can communicate function to the user without being garish. I still have a long way to go, but I’m making progress.