Re: [Usability] New Sound Preferences and Volume Control

["Diego Moya" <turingt gmail com>]

2008/12/23 Jacob Beauregard <deadowlsurvivor gmail com>:
> Your idea is another example of premature design.

You make it sound as if it were a bad thing ;-)


> It's not likely to have a
> good solution unless you understand the problem.

Probably not, but it's likely to get you to understand the problem.
Early design is not meant to get a perfect solution from the first
try, but to make clear what are the problems users would get and the
needs that aren't covered by previous existing designs.

As I said, my mockup didn't intend to be a final solution but to move
people to discuss. Some decisions may be wrong (like diminishing
volume in low-priority apps), but some others might by right
(providing a simple widget for the user to control sound priorities).

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

The main problem you seem to have with my proposal is that you want
secondary sound paused instead of muted, but the "pin" interaction
(that allows user to set high priority apps with one click) is
independent of how you define "priority" and may still have some
merit.

Changing the effect of a pinned application is a "design maneuver"
that transform the old interface proposal into a new one - we can
explore the possible interactions by changing an incomplete proposal
one bit at a time. Designers will always have some concrete interface
to ponder on, instead of discussing everything in abstract terms..

In this case, by providing an example of an interaction that handles
complex goals with few and simple steps, I expect people will notice
how much control they lose with automated sound changes, and how much
work the user must do to handle more complex widgets.

Think how you would like my mockup if applications without focus
paused as long as an application with focus is emitting sound. Would
it make more sense now for you? If you still find some problems, think
of ways in which the interface might be changed to address those
problems without adding too much complexity.