Rockbox Development > Feature Ideas
User Experience and Rockbox- A rethink required?
Multiplex:
I always struggle with the idea that something we use frequently should be intuitive - actually I think that the opposite is true - you're going to use it frequently so it is worth your while getting to learn how to use it and be able to use the thing to its greatest capability.
Driving a car is hardly intuitive but we almost all take the effort to spend weeks or months to master the user interface, same for the keyboard in front of you now.
I don't want a dumbed down useless Rockbox - there's the Original Firmware with its pretty, but useless, pretend GUI for folk that like that.
AlexP:
Tool tips are horrible, they really slow you down and get very annoying.
Your ipod video has one of the biggest screens (in fact the biggest of the standard targets) - most do not have plenty of room at all.
adityabhandari:
--- Quote from: Multiplex on December 17, 2009, 09:35:15 AM ---I always struggle with the idea that something we use frequently should be intuitive - actually I think that the opposite is true - you're going to use it frequently so it is worth your while getting to learn how to use it and be able to use the thing to its greatest capability.
Driving a car is hardly intuitive but we almost all take the effort to spend weeks or months to master the user interface, same for the keyboard in front of you now.
I don't want a dumbed down useless Rockbox - there's the Original Firmware with its pretty, but useless, pretend GUI for folk that like that.
--- End quote ---
Agreed, I am also not aiming to propose designs that dumb-down the beast that we have.
Products that are designed for first time use, ie, to accommodate even the dumbest of the users, get used only once. :D And we're aiming to streamline rockbox for the fairly advanced users only.
--- Quote from: AlexP on December 17, 2009, 09:37:29 AM ---Tool tips are horrible, they really slow you down and get very annoying.
Your ipod video has one of the biggest screens (in fact the biggest of the standard targets) - most do not have plenty of room at all.
--- End quote ---
Probably the reason why it's UI looks as if it's been designed to cover only half the screen :P
Nevermind, it was just a suggestion, my recommendations would not come in before I've been through all the simulators :)
Llorean:
--- Quote from: adityabhandari on December 17, 2009, 09:33:28 AM ---Actually, I was wondering about how much of a performance issue would it be if can display a kind of a tooltip which would inform the user about the intended usage/description of the item. Also, I think that space would not be an issue in most players, there's plenty of it available in mine below the equaliser UI. On a side note, a reason why the equaliser is hard to understand could be that it doesn't look anything like a real equaliser would look like! Most of them are vertical as opposed to the horizontal layout in Rockbox.
--- End quote ---
Tooltips then require another button to pop them up, screen real-estate (the iPod you use has one of the largest screens, most players have far less), either RAM use or disk accesses when they're loaded. And those are just the obvious drawbacks.
As for how it looks, most of the players have screens wider than they are tall so the equalizer more readily fits rotated as it is. Are you really saying that it's confusing to users that something has simply been rotated?
--- Quote ---Good design helps us to understand a product- the user should not have to rely on the manual.
--- End quote ---
It is physically impossible to design something above a certain degree of complexity without requiring reading. Including tooltips in the product is just a way of disguising the manual as the software - for something you use regularly and want to keep lean isn't it better to keep them separate and individually efficient?
AlexP:
Also, keep in mind that Rockbox isn't a product. Sure, we would like people to use and enjoy it, but we don't have to go for the lowest common denominator in order to chase sales.
I keep trying to counter my negative points with positive ones, so here goes again - we do want it to be as good and easy to use as possible, but the primary focus is the developers. I think we can expect people who decide to replace the firmware on their players to read a little if needed. They absolutely have to for the install at the very least.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version