Lack of user-friendly IxD: Replacing expired time with title

[Wisdawn]

It is confusing to the user, especially new users, but it also feels uncomfortable to the experienced user, to regularly see the expired timer Title in the field where the user is supposed to put the new time of a countdown, for example.

See the screenshot below for a comparison:

As you can see, in Example 1, the timer Title is above the time or countdown because that timer is still running. However, in Example 2, which is an expired timer, suddenly the title is replaced with the "Timer expired" notification, and the title is moved to the field of the time.

I can confirm that when I first started using Hourglass, I regularly put the time of a new countdown in the Title field, replacing the "Timer expired" note with the time, and quickly returned to my activities, only to discover later that there was no countdown because I changed the title of the timer with a countdown, and didn't restart the timer but with a new time.

The solution is to replace the time with the "Timer expired" note, and leave the Title that the user wrote as it is.

I hope that what I described makes sense. If it doesn't, I highly recommend to all programmers and designers, especially UI designers, reading the classic book Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug. What is meant by the title is that a user shouldn't think about how to use an interface or activate a machine; the design of the UI or machine should be intuitive and allow for safe, correct, instantaneous — almost instinctive — decisions, so the human brain can be dedicated to thinking about deeper things than figuring out a confusing or tricky interface.

Thank you.

[i2van]

Could you please try this one?

[i2van]

You can click on time editor and title will be revealed again. Time is more important than the title (title is optional); that's why title is used for expiration display and it can be considered a window title substitute if no window title is present.

[Wisdawn]

@i2van If time is more important than the title, then your answer is to replace the big font of the time with the Title upon expiration to make the Title big? Really?

And how does the importance of the time, compared to the title, have anything to do with reversing the placement of the various UI objects? If one UI element is more important than another, your choice is to reverse the placement of the UI objects and switch them around? In which world is that solid logic?

Finally, maybe the time is more important to you than the title, but it's the opposite for other users?

Please ... don't justify bad UI design with ... nonsense — I don't have any polite word to describe what I just read.

[i2van]

Could you create video of your use case please? I don't get it fully for now. Please add mouse pointer movements to the video.

Offtopic

BTW, the design is copied from some web-based timer. I also find it not that great, unfortunately it won't be easily modified.

If time is more important than the title, then your answer is to replace the big font of the time with the Title upon expiration to make the Title big? Really?

I did not say that, you said that. Could you please refrain from using such a cheap rhetoric trick?

Finally, maybe the time is more important to you than the title, but it's the opposite for other users?

If so, who is right here than? Making UI adjustable for such a simple application is overkill (and UI implementation is not that modifiable).

Please ... don't justify bad UI design with ... nonsense — I don't have any polite word to describe what I just read.

Let's say I don't like Apple design. Does it mean that it is bad? I don't think so. Anyway, I would like to see the video of your use case.