One problem is that people have different ways they wake up. I'm fortunate in that I've never been one to hit the snooze alarm (well, extremely rarely, probably around 50 times in my life). When my alarm goes off, I'm up and I'm off.

For the last 3-4 years, my phone has been my alarm clock. I charge it on my nightstand anyway, so I just set it for what I want when I go to bed. I also like how on Android, when you put your phone in a dock it brings up the clock/weather app, which makes it very easy to set an alarm.

When it comes to the actual alarm, I actually set it to vibrate, and that's enough to wake me up.