Rockbox Development > Feature Ideas
User Experience and Rockbox- A rethink required?
AlexP:
Everyone should search the forums for for previous discussions on menu customisation - it is a controversial subject. Personally I'm not in favour, but I wouldn't argue against it given some provisos such as must be easily resettable, maybe some items cannot be hidden, people reset to standard menus before asking for support, etc. (i.e. I'm not too bothered).
adityabhandari:
--- Quote from: Llorean on December 18, 2009, 09:35:42 AM ---This isn't a "product." It's not sold.
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I don't mean 'product' in that sense. Coming from a design background, I refer to anything that is used by people as 'product' and therefore rockbox is a product in my view :)
--- Quote ---Even on software that uses PNG/JPG at some point the image is decompressed to BMP before display. BMP has the advantage of requiring little to no processing for use (remember, these are very limited devices) whereas PNG would either need to be decompressed on load (in which case it's less efficient than BMP - processing on loads and still uses the same RAM) or decompressed on display (could use less RAM, but quite a bit more CPU time).
--- Quote ---thanks for the information. i didn't know this before.
--- Quote ---I have given away on of my rockboxed Clips to my mother and she is not very technically savvy.
--- End quote ---
Can we still have that user survey? There may be other such users too! On a side note, we SHOULD have data about rockbox usage wrt the devices it's being run on.
I will post more, may be today or tomorrow. I thought up a few things over the weekend.
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[Saint]:
--- Quote from: adityabhandari on December 21, 2009, 03:12:56 AM ---
--- Quote ---I have given away on of my rockboxed Clips to my mother and she is not very technically savvy.
--- End quote ---
Can we still have that user survey? There may be other such users too!
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Have you read the forums.....?
Just a *weeeee* bit of an underestimate saying there "may" be other such users out there, in my opinion it seems pretty obvious that there's a rather large percentage of the "technically illiterate" that use rockbox and even after having gui/feature related requests shot down continue to do so, because of the simple fact that it may not be pretty, but it just plain does more...
I'd rather an "ugly" player that did a shit-load of stuff than a "pretty" one that just does the basics that all the other DAP's do....otherwise, what's the need to switch to RockBox?
If you want a "pretty", and "streamlined" "product" for your DAP, what's wrong with what it had in the first place?
As for ToolTips:
1: Annoying
2: I can personally read a manual, and don't find it too much effort to do so.
3: Think of DAP's like the iPod Nano....where the hell would you possibly put a tooltip on a 176X132 screen?
And in general:
There are HEAPS of niggles that I have with RockBox personally, and I myself have had feature ideas shot down (in a big way), so I took the initiative to learn to edit and compile my own build, without the "bloat" (which is always subject to personal opinion).
If I can do it with my knowledge, then I'm sure if you're THAT passionate about the changes you propose, you'll follow suit and do the same.
It was a big step for me to realise that just because I, and even others, think something is a good idea...RockBox is built as it is for a reason, and there's probably a VERY good reason (backed up by a myriad of passionate developers) why it is indeed the way it is.
Which I'm sure you've noticed by now.
I'm sure it would be easier to find the information you need and apply the changes yourself (in fact I'm positive of it) than it would be to get the changes you want included in the official build.
Just a thought or two....
[St.]
adityabhandari:
--- Quote ---Have you read the forums.....?
Just a *weeeee* bit of an underestimate saying there "may" be other such users out there, in my opinion it seems pretty obvious that there's a rather large percentage of the "technically illiterate" that use rockbox and even after having gui/feature related requests shot down continue to do so, because of the simple fact that it may not be pretty, but it just plain does more...
I'd rather an "ugly" player that did a shit-load of stuff than a "pretty" one that just does the basics that all the other DAP's do....otherwise, what's the need to switch to RockBox?
--- End quote ---
So you're saying that technically illiterate people could possibly never want to use an open source product? It leads me to wonder then possibly why or how Firefox 3.5 recently became the most popular browser on the earth! Or you could probably go and see xbmc and tell me why it looks so good?
--- Quote ---As for ToolTips:
1: Annoying
2: I can personally read a manual, and don't find it too much effort to do so.
3: Think of DAP's like the iPod Nano....where the hell would you possibly put a tooltip on a 176X132 screen?
--- End quote ---
I am confused, really. Do you keep a printout of the manual handy when you're using rockbox on your 'portable' mp3 player? Also, HAVE YOU READ THIS POST? I am pretty sure that I quelled any doubts about making the entire rockbox UI tooltipped!
--- Quote ---I'm sure it would be easier to find the information you need and apply the changes yourself (in fact I'm positive of it) than it would be to get the changes you want included in the official build.
--- End quote ---
Again, do you even know what this post is about? HAVE YOU READ THIS POST, at all?? I am a usability engineer , not a developer. I maybe familiar with some of the development platforms/jargon, but definitely cannot write code to change rockbox.
I will present a strategy shift as well as some more thoughts on UI changes tomorrow . This is all I had time for today. :\
Llorean:
--- Quote from: adityabhandari on December 22, 2009, 09:33:50 AM ---So you're saying that technically illiterate people could possibly never want to use an open source product? It leads me to wonder then possibly why or how Firefox 3.5 recently became the most popular browser on the earth! Or you could probably go and see xbmc and tell me why it looks so good?
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I'd say Firefox 3.5 has a direct goal of competing with IE. This means presenting the user interface in a way somewhat familiar to users of the software. You'll notice there are plenty of other browsers (Chrome, Lynx, etc) that have chosen instead to redesign their UIs to fit their (and their features) needs instead of attempting to compete head on with IE. So using Firefox as an example is misleading - their project goals relative to the software they're trying to supplant are vastly different than Rockbox which seeks a UI designed to meet its own needs rather than the needs of some public it seeks to woo.
As for XBMC, sure it's pretty. It also has a very inconsistent interface where many options are only available during playback, or during playback of a certain type of media. Different buttons have different functions on different screens. And it doesn't have useful tooltips to help you navigate either.
If XBMC is a "good design" in your book, I'm becoming less interested in what you have to say. Learning to use XBMC requires learning many screens individually, whereas learning Rockbox requires learning list navigation and the existence of the context menu. Other than that, almost every option available is actually in the settings where a user would look for it.
The fact that XBMC "looks good" doesn't make it a good UI. Please, when you present your ideas focus on functionality issues rather than appearance issues.
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