Great design from Apple on this interaction with Siri. It was a bit after midnight (which was technically October 21), but since it was so close to the previous day, Siri wanted me to clarify which “tomorrow” 9am I really meant… 9am on the 21st (which was technically wrong, but it was what I wanted), or 9am on the 22nd (which would have been technically correct but not what I wanted).
Seen by Jason Fried on November 7 2012. There are 14 comments.
Jermaine 07 Nov 12
Love it. The little details that matter and make a difference.
Radex 07 Nov 12
That’s great. But would be a bit more clear if it had day of the week in it. I always know if it’s Monday or Tuesday, but I never remember which day of the month is it.
Jason Fried 07 Nov 12
Radex: Day of the week would be nice, yes. Regardless, the mere catching of this condition is what I wanted to call out. This is really thoughtful design.
Alejandro Moreno 07 Nov 12
It’s not necessarily wrong to not have the weekday in there. I imagine the question of “21st or 22nd” gave you enough pause to actually think about what you were asking, and is still very clear about what it wants from you.
Ben Dunlap 07 Nov 12
I’m impressed mainly that they saw it through to production. Cases like that often occur to me, and usually make me feel slightly queasy. Toughing out the extra code, visuals, etc. is, well, tough—it’s very tempting just to breeze along and excuse myself with some hand-waving about over-engineering.
Jared White 07 Nov 12
That’s quite clever, and a good example of defensive design. Imagine if it was 12:01am and Siri didn’t ask to clarify this. The person would totally miss their appointment and then wonder where the hell the reminder went.
Something to ponder is if there’s a methodology to finding solutions like this. Does Apple have a process of investigating edge cases for a feature to determine things like this, or does it just “happen” after enough testing and discussion?
Rob 07 Nov 12
Not using the windows phone as much?
Bram 07 Nov 12
Just curious: inflate tires of a bicycle or car?
GregT 08 Nov 12
That’s totally confusing. Is the reminder to be delivered at 9 AM on the 21st, or is it going to remind you, at some indeterminate time, that at 9 AM on the 21st you are to inflate your tires? I can’t believe sloppiness like this gets past QA.
Adam 08 Nov 12
It’s going to remind you @ 9AM on the 21st (or 22nd should you choose it). What’s confusing about that?
Ash Menon 08 Nov 12
That’s brilliant. I love the attention to detail!
Erik Robie 08 Nov 12
Thats absolutely amazing!
Apple never cease to astonish me, they’ve thought of everything. Sometimes I sit and ponder how much better the entire world would be if all other technology companies simply went the way of the dodo, leaving only Apple and their dream of super useable at a super affordable hardware.
Sent from my Macbook Pro :)
Duncan McDougall 08 Nov 12
Those little details that make the product feel far more polished reminds me of this site LittleBigDetails.com. No surprise that Apple features regularly.
“OS X Mountain Lion – When you trigger the Speech & Dictation dialogue, the fans on your machine immediately go minimum speed to prevent background noise.”
Zubin Wadia 10 Nov 12
Nice interaction pattern indeed.
Small improvement:
“Did you want to set a reminder for 9am (N hours:minutes from now), or on October 22nd?”
Giving me two dates implies that I am cognizant of what day it is, which by inference means that I don’t quite need Siri to cross-check for me.
This discussion is closed.