It’s Just “Stop”

Simplicity wins in VUX design.

Photo by Abstrakt Xxcellence Studios from Pexels

Something interesting happened a few days ago.

Someone in our house was using the Google Home Mini as a timer. When they were getting the alarm to stop, they said “Stop Google” and sure enough, it stopped.

This made me curious.

“OK Google… set a timer for 20 seconds.”

[Ring Ring Ring… Ring Ring Ring]

“Stop”

[Silence]

No “Hey”. No “OK”. No “Google”.

Perhaps this implementation had been around for awhile but I didn’t know about it. However, this is a very good user experience.

Alexa doesn’t have the same functionality. It not only requires you to trigger the device, but to also state “Stop” to cancel the alarm.

Anticipating what a user will say or do next and implementing that into a design can create little moments of joy.