unity-design team mailing list archive

[Martín Soto <donsoto@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 5:23 PM, Sense Hofstede <qense@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Many people have said that adding all sound using applications is not
> useful because they wouldn't use it. A few points:
>  * There is nothing that prevents you from ignoring the applications
> in the list. In fact, I think we should make it very easy to quickly
> access the main volume slider
>

By adding elements to the UI, you make it harder for people to make sense of
it. You also make it harder to use it in the long term, if only because
people will have to identify the right element among a larger total number
of elements. For these reasons, every single additional element has a cost.
Unfortunately, asking people to ignore those elements they don't need or
like simply doesn't work because, if the elements are there, their brains
will perceive them.


>  * The fact that some people don't use it doesn't mean that all people
> don't use it. We've seen in this discussion that a lot of people came
> up with uses for it quickly. We shouldn't oversimplify our desktop.
>

The important question when deciding if a feature is appropriate is not
whether someone will use it: most of the time, you will find someone who
wants it. The question is how many people will benefit from the feature and
how many won't. Because, for those who won't, the feature is just clutter,
which actually makes the UI less usable for them.


> Keeping it clean is important, but it should be easy for people to get
> extra tools when they want it. (Not that I think these volume sliders
> are power tools.)
>

Providing tools people can install to satisfy specialized needs is the Right
Thing to Do (TM). Trying to support  specialized needs in the default user
interface at the expense of a large majority of users is just plain wrong.

 * It is easy to have a central place to control the sound, like Chow
> Loong Jin already said. It's no use to go through all tabs and writing
> a Firefox plugin doesn't provide much consistency and still isn't
> central.
>

This is the sort of question that cannot be entirely settled without user
testing. That said, putting volume controls in the application is probably
easier for most people, because they can make a direct connection between
the sound source and the corresponding volume control. A central mixer, on
the other hand, requires you to first recall the application name and then
look it up in the mixer menu before you can do something. This appears a lot
more complicated from a cognitive point of view.

The book "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman explains this
issue quite well (look for term "mapping"). More direct, spatial connections
between controls and the items they control can improve interaction quite a
lot.

Best wishes,

Martín