Re: [Usability] New Sound Preferences and Volume Control

["Guillaume Ardaud" <guillaume ardaud gmail com>]

On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 3:42 PM, Kirk Bridger <kbridger shaw ca> wrote:
> Do users actually want to adjust volume for each application?

I do think that most of them don't, but we shouldn't just assume they don't.

> Put another way, isn't there some way we can just intelligently guess which
> apps should be louder?  For example, the application I'm currently working
> in versus background.  Application notification vs application output (like
> music players).  The use cases for volume aren't all that complex, but this
> discussion feels like it is becoming complex.

True, but just assuming for the user would be frustrating in the end.
Maybe we could incorporate a mechanism that adjusts the volume
following specific rules, but the user should always have a choice if
he wants to.

> Are we overthinking things here?  I've seen a few mockups, could we put
> these in front of real users and ask if application-specific volume changes
> are even a task they'd want to perform?

That would seem like the way to go to have something satisfying;
however I don't think we're overthinking it.

Think of visually impaired users using tools such as screen-readers: I
really think they want their screen reader to be louder than other
applications. This is just one example, but it shows to what extent a
full control over volume IS important.
And even for more classical users, we should have such flexibility;
the part that audio has in computing nowadays is just too important to
be neglected (app. notifications, multimedia, voIP, ...)

--
Guillaume Ardaud <guillaume ardaud gmail com>
http://www.noxneo.net/~ga