A few days ago I took a nap and set the DND –do not disturb– on a timer for 1h. Once the timer finished it went by default to "Turn off DND", which is the same as "disturb me please".
It's worth mentioning that before setting the DND for an hour, I had it one a schedule so it wouldn't disturb me from 10:30 pm to 8:30 am. It didn't go back to this one, it went to "disturb me please".
It's probably also worth mentioning that there is another mode called "Auto turn on", which detects when you're sleeping to avoid awakening you. Because this thing knows when I'm sleeping. But someone decided that the default should be to awaken someone if they receive an email at 2am.
So the thing that I bought precisely to improve my sleeping was designed to wake me up in the middle of the night.
Because of this I was wondering when did the "disturb" mode became the default? This applies to my phone as well, which I always have with DND turned on. How is it that we have to _turn on_ DND. Shouldn't it be "turn on disturb mode"?
What are the arguments that support this behaviour from a UX point of view?
-end of rant
* "disturbable by default" is a carry-over from landline-only time
* calls where rarer in landline-only time because they (sometimes) cost _money_
* calls where rarer in particular times (eg late at night) because of a social norm
* calls in the middle of the day where probably rarer, but also much easier to ignore because you were not at home and your phone simply run in the void
* calls were mostly done by human beings
Now, the "phone calls from a human being who respects social norms or that I simply never hear" have been replaced by "automated notifications from bots in a piece of plastic that's constantly in my pocket, or text messages from people that expects me to be reachable at any time."
So, I would argue that "disturb" was always the default mode, but the disturbance is now high enough that we might want to reconsider.
Although, the old rules like "don't call me after 11pm unless it's an emergency" would be hard to translate to "don't text me after 11pm unless it's an emergency even though it's currently our only way to communicate because lockdown" ;)
I know it will not work for everyone but I've setup alerts so almost nothing makes a sound on the phone, even with DnD off.
If you need to use a smartphone, at least keep it in airplane mode, even if only to avoid eating radiations 8hr every night.
However my concern has more to do with the current state of things rather than the solution for this particular problem. I mean, how is it that I have to go and turn off the phone? shouldn't the phone –apps/devices/etc– try to be less disturbing?
I've enjoyed not having to buy an alarm clock for many, many years. A phone allows me to change the noise I wake up to and set multiple alarms at random intervals. I now rarely sleep through the alarms - no more hoping that the alarm clock had a good noise and no more suddenly finding out I no longer wake to it (and yes, I sleep through them: They'd wake up others in the house. Yes, this is even with good sleep hygiene.)
Music comes from tech, too. This is especially helpful to cover up small noises in my house or the apartments around me: The small noises disturb me more when falling asleep than a radio/television going on. (The same has been true of studying: A quiet library is an experience of interruption. So. Many. Noises.)
I've lived more than one place where my tech had to be in my bedroom if I wanted any sort of privacy while using it.
Much better to be diligent about using it. It sucks that the poster seemed to be doing this, and I understand their complaint. It seems to me that it is a software oversight, but like they said, "disturb" is the norm, so we probably won't get real relief until standards change.
Phones are noisy, and phones are distracting: how often do you need to quickly check the weather and instead you read your notifications? Keeping it in airplane mode at night is a big life improvement.
I have all my sounds and notifications disabled, and my phone is always on do not disturb. Family and close friends are the only ones who can get through the wall of silence and actually ring my phone. This works very well for me. It might take some adjusting, but being able to control bottom up attention signals so that they are meaningful again is surely worth it for many people.
I hope you get appropriate compensation for being available round the clock.
I tried being on-call in my early 20s. Lasted a few months. Never. Again.
Though, perhaps you explained it poorly, what's wrong with it turning off DND mode when your 1hr DND timer expires? What else is the point of the timer?
Does that smartwatch not let you toggle DND off until you decide to toggle it back on? Is there no silent mode?
I keep my iPhone on silent-mode almost permanently. Maybe it's time to try any of the other brands with this elementary feature?
But to answer your question, people generally want to be disturbed by notifications. Just consider how many people don't keep their phone in silent mode. I don't think it's the ideal way to live, but people love running over to their phone to see if it's a new WhatsApp message that cause the ping. Certainly my girlfriend and roommates and all the people I hear day to day who have notification sounds turned on when there's a physical switch on the device to turn them off.
Still, a silent-mode switch already gives you your dream of "I want to opt-in to being disturbed". Apparently every smartwatch except your Xiaomi watch has it. Time to switch.
What I think is wrong is the default being "DND off". I mean, I wished it went back to the previous mode, which was the scheduled DND, but I understand if after the timer the device goes into "default" mode. The piece I don't get is "DND off" being the default mode, as if I was looking forward to be disturbed. Especially if this device in particular knows when I'm sleeping, and there's a mode that is pretty much "DND if I'm sleeping". Maybe I'm looking forward to getting notifications, but who thought I would also be looking forward to be awaken to get them?
> Does that smartwatch not let you toggle DND off until you decide to toggle it back on? Is there no silent mode?
Yes, the silent mode is just DND, it doesn't have sleep mode, or airplane mode, just the DND.
> But to answer your question, people generally want to be disturbed by notifications.
That might be true, and it also might be the reason for "disturb" being the default mode. It's beyond my comprehension, but it wouldn't be the first time when the general public has a different opinion than mine.
And this also brings something up. People generally want to be disturbed by notifications, and *potentially disturb anybody else in the process*. I mean, I wish I didn't have to endure all the buzzing/blinking/noise coming from devices nearby.
What I do with my phone is turn off wifi and data so that in case of emergency someone could call (or text) me but anything internet-related is disabled.
Path dependence. That's all.
It used to be fine in the past. At the beginning of the smartphone era, there just weren't that many disruptions to warrant a DND mode. Most notifications were interesting. And we didn't have wearable devices tethered to phones or computers either. The normalization of distraction kind of got us by surprise, society-wide, and it's only now that new UX patterns are developing to help people manage it.
Personally I have had email alerts turned off for the last decade and I dont sleep with my phone- its the ultimate DND.
I wish I could get an answer to this same question. I recently bought an Apple watch, mostly lured by the oximeter, and decided to wear it at night to monitor my sleep too, because after COVID I became a light sleeper.
It knows I'm sleeping, but the damn thing used to tick my wrist at 3 am to congratulate me about closing my movement circle, waking me up. It got better at staying quiet after a couple of weeks, but I had to manually configure a sleep schedule because it can't tell on its own. I blame imprecise machine learning.
I don't think manufacturers have anything to gain by disturbing you, it's just that phones have become increasingly needy on its own, because of all the notifications that we agreed to.
Haha, same. I don't use the DND mode, I just leave vibrate on but no sound. Some people complain from time to time that they can't reach me but I figure if it's something important it will reach me eventually.
When you create a timer for a mode, the most straight forward implementation is to exit that mode when time is up, not to cache what the previous mode was and check if other systems have ownership of that mode.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you set a dnd timer for one hour at 8am, dnd will be turned off at 8:30am.
Keeping track of who owns this setting is more difficult than just having each service switch the setting when they are told to.
Then keep the phone somewhere you can't hear it at all.
I have a wifi connected tablet for listening to audiobooks, porno stuff like that.
