Re: [Usability] New Sound Preferences and Volume Control

["Jacob Beauregard" <deadowlsurvivor gmail com>]

Generally I will play a game while listening to my own music.

CONFLICT

I have to turn off the game's music before I can listen to my own music without conflict. Perhaps, however, I want to interchange which music I'm listening to (ex. if I'm working on incorporating music in the game).

 

I will browse the web while listening to music.

Go to YouTube

CONFLICT

I have to pause or mute my music player before I watch a video. Whether I want to watch a video right away or I want to finish the song I'm listening to is not a given.

 

I still want to listen to the music app if its window isn't focused. I don't want to have to make the volume stick.

 

In all of these cases, I don't want to listen to both and have one louder than the other, and in most instances I'd rather end up with a paused stream than a muted one. In rare (but still significant) cases, I'd want to listen to two streams at the same time or mute the one in the foreground (often consisting of subtitles).

 

The only case where muting is, in most cases, more desirable than pausing is where pausing isn't useful to begin with (i.e. streams < 5s outside of an audio editor). Generally these streams are only selectively in conflict with longer streams. The most frequent cases are that I want all of these streams on or off. Having just those options isn't an issue unless alerts are frequently occuring that I don't care about, but I'm waiting for one in particular.

 

The problem I'd have with your model is that in my own use of audio, it doesn't make things one bit easier.

 

Your idea is another example of premature design. It's not likely to have a good solution unless you understand the problem.

 

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 1:37 PM, Diego Moya <turingt gmail com> wrote:

On 13/12/2008, Jacob Beauregard <deadowlsurvivor gmail com> wrote:

Volume has too many personal and environmental influences to create an
interface simpler than letting the user directly control the volume. I
believe I've already listed off quite a few of them.

Yeah, but the trick is in how we define "control". Just because it has always done through a slider doesn't mean it has to be that way, in every situation. When the user don't care about a precise volume but just a relative setting, a different interface could provide better control with less effort.


I have a design proposal for a really simple interface that would address many of the scenarios described in this thread and provide direct control with just a few clicks. I expose it here for your evaluation:

The interface idea is based around the "focus of sound" concept that I explained in a previous message in this thread: applications with the focus will play louder than those without it, thus creating a two-level relative priority set.

* The basic interface is an enhanced gnome-panel volume control. I've created a mockup:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33364508 N04/3108031818/

This replaces the old, too small volume control with an always visible slider that allows for direct volume control with one click - important for users without mousewheel, using a laptop trackpad, a tablet touchscreen or an accesibility pointing device.

You'll notice that it also includes a "pin" button

By default,

The question is not then, building the right mental model to represent
volume sets, but rather how to make it easy to control volume directly.

 

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