Time Timer

Time Timer is a productivity app that creates colorful visuals for time management. It can help students (or adults) focus on timed tasks, visualize the passage of time, or manage transitions, or help students wait. The customizable timers act as clear, colorful visuals to help students understand concepts of time. Tap the plus sign to create a new timer, and a default stopwatch-style timer appears that goes up to 60 minutes. Swipe around with your finger to set the desired duration. Then you can start the timer. If you save it, you can also name the timer and adjust the color and other settings. Teachers can create timers lasting anywhere from 1 second to 99 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds. Settings include which sound the timer makes when it completes, whether your device will also vibrate, how many times the timer plays, and what color the timer is. Teachers can save a large number of timers to reuse as they need. Timers can run concurrently, and setting different completion sounds can be helpful to distinguish among them. If you want the timer to stay on the screen, be sure to turn on the awake mode. Students can view all the timers in a list, or swipe through when shown full-screen. On each timer screen, there are little buttons that can be changed on the fly for whether the timer makes an audible sound and creates a vibration -- handy for schoolrooms and public spaces.

Though the app looks nice and generally works OK, it includes some confusing functionality and some buggy parts. When users create a new timer, it defaults to a red disc timer with a 60-minute time scale, and sometimes it's impossible to rename the timer without starting it, pausing it, and then editing it. Teachers can switch over to the more customizable one but can't switch back, since that option disappears. The customizable one doesn't include numbers around the outside of the timer, missing out on a great opportunity to link visual time to numbered wedges. Setting more than one repetition of a timer doesn't display the count on the screen (though it looks like it's supposed to), so users will have to count their taps when they set it. Also, deleting a timer when in List mode doesn't appear to delete the timer, but after trying to delete it a second time, then refreshing the list, the app actually deletes the timer and the one below it. This timer is pretty slick in the ways that it works, but there are still several bugs to be worked out. It could also be improved by adding a function to run different timers one after another.

Time concepts can be challenging for many students, especially those with special needs. With Time Timer, younger students can see time as a measurement without the numbers on a traditional clock. Older students can focus on the amount of time left, represented by the amount of color on the timer or the countdown at the bottom. The app turns time into a visual reference, helping students break large tasks into smaller ones, or reminding them to take a break from their task regularly. It can help create routines, teaching them to work more independently. But the lack of numbers around the custom timer discs seems like a missed opportunity to aid in time visualization.

Although Time Timer was created as a productivity tool, students can learn time management, work efficiently, and even perhaps gain in-the-moment motivation by using this app. Throughout education and life, students and adults are expected to perform under time pressure on tests and other tasks. For some students, time pressure may help boost productivity and creativity, though it may hinder or paralyze other students. In those cases, this app may help them learn to manage time-related stress and practice focusing to stay on task, once they learn their way around the interface. Time Timer can help students appreciate the value of time and how to use it well.