The goal is to get the signal to full strength (The circles on the right hand side) in each time stream. When you are not in a time stream it degrades so it is a balancing act. They explain it at the start but there is also a lot going on for you to do ;) (I didn't want any boring seconds of them only expositioning but if you didn't know what to do that is not ideal)
What did you find hard about the controls? That it is hard to play (I was aiming for the gameplay to last about a minute) or that they didn't feel good?