2

Consider an IoT device with a touchscreen, e.g. an advanced alarm clock (doesn't matter). The device has a simple UI and will be on during day and night. However, the screen is very bright, too bright at night. The brightness can be set to an acceptable level, I thought of three ways:

  • Based on the current time (user sets start and end of this "night mode" manually for one time)

    • Pro: user doesn't need to set brightness each time

    • Con: would require the user to "go to bed at the same time" every day

  • Manually trough a toggle button or slider

    • Like the above but pro and con swapped

  • A mix of both, e.g. set start manually each evening but set to high brightness at the same time each morning

Which of these is be best from an UX perspective?

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5

In my opinion, in your scenario, the brightness should change according to the environment light, which is not necessarily related to the time of the day.

The use of an automatic toggle option lets the user decide if the device decides the best brightness for him. This is good and could be both Opt-in or Opt-out.

Another option is to give the user 2 or 3 sets of values (brightness 10%, 50%, 100% for example).

Improve this answer
5
  • Ah that came to my mind too, but in my experience photoresistors have a very bad accuray, so even a dark shadow or the user standing in front of the device would kill this mechanism... What would you suggest? However, thanks for the good and fast input!
    – linusg
    Commented Jan 18, 2017 at 21:20
  • 1
    @linusg if the service is not going to be accurate then I wouldn't rely on it for this. An alternative is what I suggest, let the user decide between 2 options (for example "low brightness", "high brightness"), as well as with a slider.
    – Alvaro
    Commented Jan 18, 2017 at 21:24
  • I will try using 2-3 sources of brightness detection and use their average for the screen brightness, so brightness is based on environment light. Finally, the user can manually override this automatic suggestion. Thanks for the answer :)
    – linusg
    Commented Jan 18, 2017 at 21:29
  • @linusg You're welcome :) Maybe you could leave the question unanswered for some more time in case others have suggestions.
    – Alvaro
    Commented Jan 18, 2017 at 21:34
  • This is indeed a good idea. Will wait for 1-2 days from now and then accept one answer again (which is rather uncommon for sb coming mainly from StackOverflow ;) )
    – linusg
    Commented Jan 18, 2017 at 21:38

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.