Re: [Usability] suggestions to ameliorate the ergonomics of totem

["Diego Moya" <turingt gmail com>]

They say an image is worth a thousand words: why can't Totem's volume control be like this?

http://media-player-classic.brothersoft.com/screenshots/Media-Player-Classic-6.4.-9.0_2.png
(Link to screenshot of Media Player Classic).

For me, that is the perfect volume control widget. It doesn't need tooltips, scrollwheels or drags to do its task well.

2008/8/12 Reinout van Schouwen <reinouts gnome org>

Hello Diego,

Using the scroll wheel over the volume control works as well.

And how is that discoverable? I think of myself as pretty computer-savvy, and I never thought of using the scrollwheel over a *button*.

 

> Also the hidden volume slider has the problem of  not providing
> feedback of what the current volume is, until you begin to interact
> with it.

Not true; the volume indicator shows zero, one, two, or three "loudness
curves" depending on the current setting.

I didn't notice they were there. This says something about their visual design - they're very unremarkable, too small.

 

> would someone want to NOT know the current volume percentage,
> especially when inside a movie player?

Are you serious? Volume percentage values are rather meaningless. Or do
you have such exact hearing that you can discern between more than
rather descriptive values like "silent", "whispering", "conversation",
"loud", and "painfully loud"?

It's useful to have information about the relative volume level with respect to the device max, since volume is set on a relative basic compared to the previous level.

See the Media Player Classic example to see how the draggable slider works both as the direct-manipulation device and the status notifier, and how the desired relative volume can be set with just one click at the right point. Is something better in the Totem design that I'm missing, apart from the very little space it uses on screen? (in a place where there's LOTS of free space to use).