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An Alarm Designer on How to Annoy People in the Most Effective Ways

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Re: An Alarm Designer on How to Annoy People in the Most Effective Ways

#12

Post by vvanders »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #8
scoot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A lot of research went into everything from the gender to the tone of the voice" And according to that wikipedia link, most of it was wrong or conflicting!

I feel like cursing should also have been considered.

Just have them call up Peter Capaldi, he'd be a great fit.

Re: An Alarm Designer on How to Annoy People in the Most Effective Ways

#15

Post by dfsegoat »

tome wrote: post #3
dfsegoat wrote: post #2

Along these same lines, one of my favorite examples of this type of work (human factors related to attention/alerting) is "Bitchin' Betty" and company - the female voice that makes up the "oral alert system" from the F/A-18 superhornet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx7-yvXf6f8 A lot of research went into everything from the gender to the tone of the voice so that pilots would know to immediately pay attention to t…

That's really interesting! And now and off-topic question: why would rolling right stop a plane from going in the sea?

Not a pilot or engineer - but I imagine if the plane were in a "banked left" position (prolonged left roll) where altitude was being lost because of "slip" - then rolling right would restore lift / level flight

http://2bfly.com/assets/slipinbank21.png

Re: An Alarm Designer on How to Annoy People in the Most Effective Ways

#17

Post by dingaling »

sumoboy wrote: post #10

Hospital monitors beeping all the time are so annoying, stressful. Last visit I just turned off the machine I was annoyed.

Nurses also seem to adapt to filter out the noise which seems practical but means they can also unconsciously ignore alarms or at least require longer to respond.

In airliner cockpits this also became a problem when CRTs superceded analogue instruments as the constant drone of their cooling fans masked important aural cues. It has improves with the use of cooler LCDs but even now a 737 cockpit is shockingly noisy.

ts

Re: An Alarm Designer on How to Annoy People in the Most Effective Ways

#18

Post by raamdev »

I discovered when I was in my late teens that given a week or two of the same daily alarm, my subconscious would eventually recognize the sound as my alarm and I'd get up, walk across the room, turn it off, go back to sleep and wake up an hour or two later with absolutely no recollection of turning it off. I eventually discovered that using my phone as an alarm, with my call ringtone as the alarm sound, was the only way to trick my brain into forcing me awake: my subconscious has no way of knowing if it's an actual phone call that I need to be awake for or if it's just the alarm, so it forces me awake to figure that out. Its worked for years now.

Re: An Alarm Designer on How to Annoy People in the Most Effective Ways

#19

Post by LargeCompanies »

Many years ago I created a social alarm clock idea which was panned and hated.. lol. Though at the time I had no tech skills and never released our prototype.

Personally being woken up to something funny, cute, meaningful from a friend or loved one was great. Though the challenge for this idea to work is you have to put restraints via audio volume levels to ensure a great experience (waking up laughing or with a smile or another positive emotion) happens on each use. Also know the likes of each user and what's happening in their life.

I still believe it's a great idea/new form of communication that if done correctly the masses would love, as when it wakes you up to something you connect with you smile and or laugh; changing your morning routine for the better! I wish Apple would allow a user the ability to wake up to a radio URL!!!

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