Re: [Usability] Category Management (i.e. Rhythmbox Music Player)

["Jasir Alavi" <jasiralavi gmail com>]

What i was trying to say was that if we could sort a category by more than just the alphabetic order.

say Artists can be sorted by name alphabetically, 
or by the number of albums (so that artists with more albums are on top)
or by the number of titles they have,
or may be even my ratings.

so say you sorting by number of tracks/songs and have 3 artists with 10 each,
then they would be shown alphabetically.

and yes may be we can have an option to show all The/A/An as

The Someband --> Someband, The
A Some-Song --> Some-Song, A
and so on.

On Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 7:57 PM, Jacob Beauregard <jake13jake comcast net> wrote:

Correction in the last paragraph: I meant to say "particle" rather than "participle."

Jacob Beauregard wrote:

By category and number of items? Browsing within categories, in practice, is typically done in alphanumerical sorted order. Just so you're aware, the way I'm interpreting your idea is that the artists or albums would be sorted by number of track items, and key matches within that sorting order would revert to alphabetical order, as though one were to have separate columns for each, and it would sort first by artist and then by number of track items. I wouldn't think that to be a better solution, but I may have misinterpreted you.

Here's one case (my own). This is the number of tracks per artist I have in order of artist name:
All Artists (1884)
11, 1, 1, 1, 23, 1, 1, 1, 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 12, 9, 1, 1, 1, 1, 28, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 11, 20, 16, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 11, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 10, 1, 14, 24, 5, 37, 1, 3, 1, 16, 1, 1, 1, 15, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 20, 13, 1, 10, 2, 1, 7, 1, 1, 2, 1, 16, 1, 1, 24, 15, 1, 55, 1, 9, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 15, 1, 76, 12, 1, 1, 1, 1, 14, 12, 1, 11, 1, 1, 20, 13, 3, 1, 1, 16, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 12, 1, 13, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 7, 24, 1, 1, 1, 14, 1, 1, 9, 16, 1, 1, 49, 4, 1, 7, 5, 1, 57, 32, 42, 1, 1, 1, 13, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 36, 1, 1, 1, 1, 11, 1, 9, 1, 1, 10, 48, 12, 1, 1, 15, 35, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 29, 1, 1, 1, 1, 21, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 16, 1, 1, 10, 1, 1, 5, 1, 21, 1, 80, 1, 1, 1, 2, 74, 1, 1, 1, 1, 169, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 11, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 13, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 10, 13, 1, 1, 1, 1, 14, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 13, 1, 2, 11, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 13, 23, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 16, 1.

How would anyone find use in browsing through that? Seriously!! That gives me 280 artists to look through, very few being substantive in terms of the number of items. Albums, 263 total, aren't much better for browsing, given the number of singles I have. A way to weed out all of those 1's and to put them in their own category would be a good start.

In essence, if I could browse through my collection in the following manner, it would be a lot easier on me:

11, 23, 3, 2, 12, 9, 28, 20, 16, 11, 2, 10, 14, 24, 5, 37, 3, 16, 15, 2, 20, 13, 10, 2, 7, 2, 16, 24, 15, 55, 9, 2, 15, 76, 12, 14, 12, 20, 13, 3, 16, 12, 13, 7, 24, 14, 9, 16, 49, 4, 7, 5, 57, 32, 42, 13, 2, 36, 11, 9, 10, 48, 12, 15, 35, 29, 21, 2, 16, 10, 5, 21, 80, 2, 74, 169, 11, 13, 10, 13, 14, 13, 2, 11, 13, 23, 2, 16, Others -> 1, (...), 1.

You know, I'd be happier with the quality of my music player if that were the case. In addition, the number of 2-3-track artists aren't nearly as terrible as the number of singles I have, though another person may opt to categorize 2-3-track artists within an "Other" list if that option was available.

Also, ignoring things like the "The" in front of an artist name, when sorting, would be useful for many people, though arguably the current method is fine. The justification is that there are simply a ridiculous number of bands whose names start with "The." In fact, it accounts 12% of all artists in my collection. In practice, in many music players and at record stores, artists are sorted by name ignoring "The," or any other frequent participle. Equal distribution across the alphabet tends to make scanning through a list, at least for browsing purposes, much easier.

Jasir Alavi wrote:

better idea would be to have an option categorize

1. by album, alphabetically
2. by album and number of items

1. by artist, alphabetically
2. by artist and number of items

so that all categories with fewer items can be show at the bottom.
and still give the user to set it alphabetically.

On Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 2:30 AM, Jacob Beauregard <jake13jake comcast net <mailto:jake13jake comcast net>> wrote:

Alright, so the clearest example of problems in regards to
category management is in Rhythmbox, where songs are categorized
by Album and Artist.

I'll precede this by saying, effective categorization requires the
minimization of the number of categories that contain very few
items without browsing becoming increasingly difficult.

For instance, one doesn't categorize books solely by name in a
library.

With that said, there is a problem with the categorization method
that Rhythmbox uses. When one categorizes by Artist, and a large
number of artists have few unique tracks, it no longer proves an
effective method of categorization. The same could be said for
Albums that are singles or have very few tracks.

This makes browsing extremely difficult; most users will thus
default to using the search bar. However, browsing is just as
important as filtering due to the factor of greater visibility.
It's just like using an aggregator vs. using a search engine. They
both serve their purposes, and one should be able to use either
effectively.

I would propose for _any_ kind of populated categorization first
to require that an expandable "Other" category be used if one, the
category lists a number of items that falls below a particular
number of standard deviations from the mean number of items per
categorization; and two, the items within the categories that meet
this condition can be populated as a whole to be within the
particular number of standard deviations.

Would this be a good idea?
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Jasir Alavi
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