I was actually arguing that the letter makes it
easier to comprehend in a sense, because it forces you to do the mapping, instead of assuming the same zone.
That being said, the interface should really put the location closer to the letter ring, because it's somewhat easy to forget you're looking at a localized mapping and what the letters mean, since they are in another UI element.
"So all users when they look at the clock at the same time no matter where they are, they'd see the same time."
This is true of any clock (unless fancy optics are involved, or we get too deep into physics), two people looking at the same wall clock will see the same time. The problem is that they might want to interpret what they see in a different way. Both UTC and your htime thing are a way to solve that problem.
Leading with a letter helps people not start reading as a local time, whereas with 8061 formatted times you only notice it's not in your own locale at the very end of the time. Depending on your use one might be better than the other. Unfortunately time requires that I remember one additional piece of information, namely UTC: X=24, before I can index into the alphabet and calculate the difference myself, whereas UTC simply requires I add the offset to the time and move on with my life.
That being said, the interface should really put the location closer to the letter ring, because it's somewhat easy to forget you're looking at a localized mapping and what the letters mean, since they are in another UI element.
"So all users when they look at the clock at the same time no matter where they are, they'd see the same time."
This is true of any clock (unless fancy optics are involved, or we get too deep into physics), two people looking at the same wall clock will see the same time. The problem is that they might want to interpret what they see in a different way. Both UTC and your htime thing are a way to solve that problem.
Leading with a letter helps people not start reading as a local time, whereas with 8061 formatted times you only notice it's not in your own locale at the very end of the time. Depending on your use one might be better than the other. Unfortunately time requires that I remember one additional piece of information, namely UTC: X=24, before I can index into the alphabet and calculate the difference myself, whereas UTC simply requires I add the offset to the time and move on with my life.