Rockbox Development > Feature Ideas
User Experience and Rockbox- A rethink required?
adityabhandari:
What a response! Thanks for all the info. Here are a few of my doubts/comments based on what has been mentioned so far. Please bear with me if you find them to be childish or uninformed. I ask them with the intention of encouraging more discussion :-
@linuxstb "it runs on many different devices"- I feel final optimizations still need to be in place. However, we can bring some sense of consistency across all platforms by adopting common UI patterns. Can someone give me information regarding the display options available on B/W players, e.g., for color screen players we can use jpgs, what do we use in case of B/W players? Also, do we support .svg/ .png graphic files? If not, would we, in the future?
@AlexP:"we don't want to remove or hide options"- By default, nothing should be hidden, but I guess, we can atleast give the user the choice to decide what he wants to see/hide? E.g.: my ipod 5 g doesn't support recording and hence I have no use for it, I want to hide it.
@Llorean: "lot of the usability hindrances (such as crowded button maps or the basic list-based user interface) are also strengths in other ways"- crowded button maps?? Also, I am not against the list-based UI, it's nice. I just feel that we can work to enhance the already existing UI.
@Llorean: "powerful access to many features..."-The access needs to be in place, for sure, that's what Rockbox is all about! :) However, these UIs can look and work better. E.g. Text Entry in ipod 5G is certainly not very convenient, to put it mildly. Also, the "graphical equalizer" does offer advanced control over the sound but isn't very easy to use. It doesn't do much in terms of informing the user(especially a novice user) about the meaning of say, "LS" or "PK1".
@GodEater: I intend to provide UI mock ups of my suggestions.
torne:
Features such as recording *do* only appear on players which support them. The iPod 5G is perfectly capable of recording, the line-in pins are on the dock connector.
Is the manual's description of the graphical equaliser not sufficient? There really isn't room to go into a detailed discussion of what the EQ settings mean on the device, especially on devices with small screens...
AlexP:
--- Quote from: adityabhandari on December 17, 2009, 08:53:50 AM ---@linuxstb "it runs on many different devices"- I feel final optimizations still need to be in place. However, we can bring some sense of consistency across all platforms by adopting common UI patterns. Can someone give me information regarding the display options available on B/W players, e.g., for color screen players we can use jpgs, what do we use in case of B/W players? Also, do we support .svg/ .png graphic files? If not, would we, in the future?
--- End quote ---
The UI is already consistent across devices, and things like bmp backdrops, jpeg album art etc are supported where possible. Other formats are unlikely, these are limited resource devices. I strongly suggest that you try out other players using the simulator before making any suggestions.
--- Quote from: adityabhandari on December 17, 2009, 08:53:50 AM ---@AlexP:"we don't want to remove or hide options"- By default, nothing should be hidden, but I guess, we can atleast give the user the choice to decide what he wants to see/hide? E.g.: my ipod 5 g doesn't support recording and hence I have no use for it, I want to hide it.
--- End quote ---
Configurable menus are a huge bag of worms. Search for previous discussions on this on the forums, IRC and the mailing list.
Normally features that are not supported are not offered, torne beat me to why.
We need actual idea here, not just that something isn't nice. And please read the manuals/check the sims first, so you don't suggest things that already exist/are done. It'll also help you to get an idea of what is possible across targets.
All that being said, we do want improvements (we have just got rather cynical that anyone will actually do anything other than list what they don't like :))
Llorean:
--- Quote from: adityabhandari on December 17, 2009, 08:53:50 AM ---Can someone give me information regarding the display options available on B/W players, e.g., for color screen players we can use jpgs, what do we use in case of B/W players? Also, do we support .svg/ .png graphic files?
--- End quote ---
We use bitmaps, not jpgs. See the themeing options, no graphics should really be incorporated into Rockbox itself. .svg and .png are somewhat unlikely. You shouldn't be thinking of UI improvements in terms of graphics - themeing options exist for graphics. You should be thinking in terms of usability.
--- Quote ---E.g.: my ipod 5 g doesn't support recording and hence I have no use for it, I want to hide it.
--- End quote ---
Actually, your player does support recording. Features that are useless aren't included to save RAM.
--- Quote ---crowded button maps??
--- End quote ---
Many people complain about the fact that there are sometimes different features on a tap of a button compared to holding it down, or that some features are activated by pressing multiple buttons simultaneously.
--- Quote ---It doesn't do much in terms of informing the user(especially a novice user) about the meaning of say, "LS" or "PK1".
--- End quote ---
These are terms someone familiar with equalizers would know, and it's not really possible for the UI to explain technical details, just like it doesn't explain "bitrate" or "sample rate" for recording users. If these need explaining they should be in the manual. It's not really the place of the UI to educate users.
Remember that it's also bad to waste RAM. You can't just include everything everyone might want in the UI. These players have limited processors and limited available memory and there's generally a benefit to using as few total resources as possible (with RAM being, generally, more freely available than CPU time).
adityabhandari:
--- Quote ---These are terms someone familiar with equalizers would know, and it's not really possible for the UI to explain technical details, just like it doesn't explain "bitrate" or "sample rate" for recording users.
--- End quote ---
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.
The Tooltip feature could be used in several places, but not ALL, it could prove to be a valuable enhancement, but only if used judiciously.
--- Quote ---Is the manual's description of the graphical equaliser not sufficient?
--- End quote ---
Good design helps us to understand a product- the user should not have to rely on the manual.
--- Quote ---crowded button maps??
--- End quote ---
Oh! I am totally sold on the versatility of these babies. They give the user so much more power, especially at their fingertips :P. They need not go away. However, we could look into reasons why people face problems while using them and take a call if we indeed need to change this feature or not.
--- Quote ---I strongly suggest that you try out other players using the simulator before making any suggestions.
--- End quote ---
thanks alex, I will. I hope they're all as easy to get up and running as the one for ipod 5g video.
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