Re: [Usability] Re: What's new in HIG 2.0

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Sat, 2004-09-18 at 19:09 +0100, Keith Sharp wrote:
> On Sat, 2004-09-18 at 14:54 -0300, Steven Garrity wrote:
> > Keith Sharp wrote:
> > > I agree with this entirely.  My main usability gripe with Rhythmbox is
> > > that there is no stop button in the UI.  I frequently stop the current
> > > track playing by pressing pause, then leave the computer for a while.
> > > When I return I want to start a different track playing - frequently I
> > > select the track I want and the click play with the effect that the
> > > previous track resumes playing!
> > 
> > Fair points - Stop does mean something different than "Pause". However, 
> > this is something Apple did with iTunes that I think is a smart move. 
> > They have eliminated the concept of "stop" replacing it with only the 
> > Pause/Play concept.
> > 
> > Yes, this is a bit limiting, but it eliminates an entire top-level 
> > button and a whole navigation concept that we can get by without. 
> > Simpler, no?
> 
> Given I still make the mistake, even after several months of using the
> software, I would have to say no :-(
> 
> The problem is that it presents a different interface to all other "real
> world" devices that support play/pause/stop operations, hence it doesn't
> work in the way a user would expect based on previous experience.

Well, no, it doesn't.  In hardware devices, stop and pause were always
defined by the underlying technology.  Pause meant to keep the player in
a ready-to-play state, but not to play.  Stop meant to stop the player
altogether.

With tapes and other serial devices, play *always* resumed where you
left off, whether or stopped or paused.  Pause didn't exist to let you
continue playing where you left off; stop did that already.  Pause was
there because it took time and mechanical effort to move the head, so
pause could give you more seamless recordings and ease the wear on your
tape player if you're constantly pausing and playing.

When CDs came on the scene, pause and stop still had the same meaning,
in reletion to the physical technology.  But their effect on the user
was different, because the technology was different.  CDs don't have a
state of their own.  When you reset the read head, you're back to the
beginning of the disc.  Pause still did the same thing as for tapes,
effectively.

Then we started making software players.  Pause had always been fairly
well-defined in terms of functionality, and we did a good job of copying
that.  But we just totally made up the definition of stop.  There does
not exist a hardware player where stop means "reset to the beginning of
track."  With tapes, play resumed where you left off.  And with CDs,
play resumed at the beginning of the disc, not the track.

The metaphor is completely bogus.

Now, as for the practical matter of how to get back to the beginning of
the track, you have two pretty easy options:  You can click Previous,
which will take you to the beginning of the track, as long as you've
passed some time threshhold (you know, *exactly* like all those CD
players we're so keen on imitating).  Or you can grab the slider that
indicates your position in the track and drag it all the way to left.

And for the practical matter of pausing, them coming back an hour later
and wanting to start on a new song, what's wrong with double-clicking
that song in the queue?

Stop is worse than legacy cruft.  At least legacy things had some
purpose when first we did them.

--
Shaun