Design That Evolves with Business Objectives

How has Alarmy's core screen changed over time?

The core of Alarmy, the Alarm Editor

Alarmy has been sprinting forward for a long time, focusing solely on a clear wake-up. For a user to achieve a successful wake-up in Alarmy, the very first step was the Alarm Editor. Depending on how users configured their settings in the editor, their mornings could change completely.
Just like the chat screen in KakaoTalk or the transfer screen in Toss, the Alarm Editor—the core of the alarm feature—was treated as the most important screen within the team.

An Alarm Editor that has changed according to our goals

As with all product teams, you probably run various experiments and make different attempts to achieve the goal of a key screen. The Alarmy team was no different.
To reach the ultimate goal of 확실한 기상을 위한 알람 설정, the detailed objectives within the editor have changed in many ways. Depending on the shifting circumstances, the editor screen has been constantly evolving, often without users even noticing.

🎯 Releasing premium features
When the first subscription feature was created in Alarmy, we had to communicate that it was more special than other features, and there was a time when we focused on making it stand out more to the user.

Target: Heavy sleepers who focus on waking up using any means necessary
Design Goal: Make premium features stand out
Solution: Use icons and colors to emphasize premium features.

🎯 Encouraging more usage of premium features
We tried eye-catching designs and also focused on various UI attempts to provide easy usability.

Target: Curious users who love exploring various features within the alarm
Design Goal: Increase the accessibility of premium features to make setup easier
Solution: Improve with a switch UI for easy control without extra depth.

🎯 Increasing the number of alarms sustained every day
To achieve an alarm setup for a clear wake-up, there was a time when the priority of consistency was highly emphasized. This was because we believed that a consistent wake-up pattern across weekdays and weekends helps create a successful morning. There was a period when the importance of the existing shortcuts that helped set the alarm time decreased, while setting repeating days took higher priority.

Target: Users who find it annoying (or forget) to set an alarm every day
Design Goal: Make the repeat feature UI easy to configure
Solution: Improve the UI to increase the accessibility of the repeating days setting, which used to be hidden at depth level 2.

🎯 Releasing multiple missions
Missions, the most core part of Alarmy's alarm setup, have been loved for a long time. 50% of users setting alarms actively used missions, and many of them consistently wanted to use multiple missions in a single alarm. The Alarmy team also believed that using multiple missions would be a huge help in ensuring a successful wake-up.

Target: Heavy sleepers for whom a single mission isn't enough
Design Goal: Make multiple missions intuitively understandable
Solution: Show that multiple missions can be set through the mission entry point.

Designing according to objectives

Organizing the information architecture of sound-related features

1. Grouping fragmented features
   We improved the information architecture by gathering sound features together, moving away from the previous structure where basic alarm features were just loosely grouped.

2. Improving feature names
   Since the premium feature 알람 파워업 only consisted of sound functionalities, we updated the UX writing and improved it to 사운드 파워업.

Organizing the information architecture of similar fragmented features

1. Moving alarm sound settings from global settings
   To allow users to customize the sound volume in detail, we integrated it with Alarm Power-up, grouping the information as a feature that enhances the sound.

2. Moving snooze settings from global settings
   To allow users to customize the snooze feature in more detail, we grouped the snooze limit setting, which was previously in the global settings, together with the time interval setting.

So, what were the results of this improvement?

Changes to depth level 1 in the Alarm Editor

The entry rate for sounds remained similar to before. However, as the feature previously named Alarm Power-up was changed to Sound Power-up and grouped with other sound information, its entry rate increased by 3.5 times compared to the past.

Global features moved to depth level 2 in the Alarm Editor

The sound customization features and snooze customization features, which were previously fragmented in the global settings, also saw their usage increase by more than 3 times.

A constantly evolving product based on goals, endless design contemplation

While wrapping up this editor revamp, I also briefly summarized the past changes to the Alarm Editor. In fact, beyond the work I've introduced, countless improvements and experiments have been conducted just within the editor screen itself.

I've occasionally gotten questions from people outside wondering if building an alarm app really requires that much of a designer's role. As we build and grow our product, we naturally always establish new goals. Along with the numerous attempts driven by those goals, design considerations are bound to follow. As long as there is a goal, the design contemplation will inevitably continue.

Up until now, under Alarmy's goal of ensuring a successful wake-up, the Alarm Editor—our most critical screen—has gone through countless changes based on our objectives and user definitions.
Looking ahead, we will likely continue to set various goals, improve, and run experiments for our growth by mapping out the user journey from sleep to the moment right after waking up for a successful morning.

Recently, beyond the Alarm Editor, various improvements and experiments have been underway within the core screens for the sleep and post-wake-up journeys in Alarmy.
If you're a designer looking to take on even more diverse challenges with us, please feel free to reach out anytime.