I think the new visuals and info modes are great fun and a big
improvement, but the IR controls are annoying. The first press of the
visual select button or the info select button should definitely not cycle
to the next immediately, particularly with the visuals, because if you
press the wrong button by accident it takes multiple button presses to
get back to where you were before. There is no way to just toggle the
info display on and off now, as there used to be when there was only
one type of track info. I would like to leave the visuals running most
of the time and just occasionally want to call up the track info for a
quick peek at what's playing.

So I propose two changes, the first I'm sure should be simple to do:
1. Make the meaning of pressing the remote visual select button depend
on the current state of the display:
* if the track info display is on, switch it off.
* if the visual title display is showing, select the next visual.
* otherwise (a visual is running full-screen), display the visual title.

The second change adds a new feature I'd like, that of a track info
display that disappears by itself:
2. Make the meaning of pressing the track info select button depend on
the current state of the display:
* if the track info display is off, switch it on for a few seconds.
* if the track info display is on temporarily, select it permanently.
* otherwise, display the next style of track info.

The first change stands by itself. It means you have to press two buttons
where you might currently press only one to step to the next visual. It
also gives a more sensible meaning to pressing the visual button while the
track info is displayed; currently this appears to do nothing but actually
the next visual invisibly. I think that both these changes are desirable.

This is an interesting design, and I think I'd like it if it behaved this way. It would also take care of one minor problem I have with the current UI: The "Confirm/Enter" button is the same as the "Visual Select" button, so if I confirm something once too many times, I accidentally change the visual. ("Damnit, where'd my Hula Hoops go?!")

There's only one problem with that design: The functions would not be immediately obvious to the user and are not self-explanatory. In other words, most users would have to read the manual to understand how they worked. (Or, if they were of the hacker mentality, they could figure it out by messing around with it.)

That's a tough call to make when you're designing a user interface: Simplicity vs. Power. The best user interfaces can offer both, but when you have things like limited controls and a limited display, you don't always have the luxury of being able to offer both.

Hugo, how do you feel about that balance between simplicity and power? Do you have an imaginary "target" user that you carefully design the UI for, or do you improvise the UI design?

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

Tony Fabris <tfabris> wrote:
There's only one problem with that design: The functions would not be
immediately obvious to the user and are not self-explanatory. In other
words, most users would have to read the manual to understand how they
worked. (Or, if they were of the hacker mentality, they could figure it
out by messing around with it.)

I'm not sure that any interface that uses a button marked DNPP is obvious
or self-explanatory:-) At least my proposal for the visual select should
be familiar to most people: the remote control volume and balance on my
TV and amplifier, and the digital settings on my monitor all use this
idiom (one press to display current, another press to change, wait for
it to disappear).

I agree that the pop-up track info idea was a bit less obvious, and
thinking about it a bit more, I realise that what I really dislike is
losing the old toggle info on/off. In release 10, that button has
gained the extra feature of cycling through the info modes. That is the
wrong place to have added that function; what would be much easier to use
(and understand) would be to keep the old behaviour of the info toggle
on/off and just make the visual select button step through visuals when
in visual mode and step through track info when in info mode.

So I recant my second wish. What I want instead is simpler to
describe: one button to toggle between visual and track info,
one button to step through the options for the current view.

To address Tony's point about the "Confirm/Enter" button being the same
as the "Visual Select" button, just put the toggle track info function
on the same button as Confirm/Enter; that way, an inadvertent press can
be easily un-done.

--
Robin O'Leary

I agree that the pop-up track info idea was a bit less obvious ( . . ) what I really dislike is losing the old toggle info on/off.


Solving it is difficult because we (=empeg team) have to cramp a lot of functionality into only a few buttons. On the display, this is alleviated somewhat by allocating dual functions to s single button by differentiating between single and double presses. I suggest to carry this over to the remote (if possible).

This would allow:
a single key press to cycle through all the track-info screens, as it is now, and
a double press to toggle the one last selected on-or-off (or better yet to turn the last selected one on for 3-4 seconds)


Henno
# 00120 (6GB+18)

Henno wrote:
Solving it is difficult because we (=empeg team) have to cramp a
lot of functionality into only a few buttons.
This isn't quite so much of an issue on the remote which has more buttons
available than the front panel. I think of the remote as a sort of cache
of most commonly-used features. You can do all the same operations on
both, but it is important for the remote to give easy access to the most
needed features, even at the expense of absolute generality (which is
always available through the menu interface anyway).

Two of these buttons are already dedicated to the two features I am
discussing; that should be plenty to control info on/off and selection.
The problem is that the functions of those two buttons do not map well
to operations this user wants to perform. I never want to change visual
while looking at the info screen, because the info screen now totally
obscures the visual. So it seems daft to keep a button for this function.
But one thing I often want to do is see the detailed info for the track
now playing, then dismiss it, but the buttons now don't let me do this easily.

On the display, this is alleviated somewhat by allocating dual
functions to a single button by differentiating between single and double
presses.
It's actually short and long presses, isn't it? Certainly some
other computer interfaces have used double- and even triple-click for
different functions, but it's always seemed a bit clumsy to me. I'm
not too keen on the long-press operations either, but they are just
short-cuts for things you can do another way.

I suggest to carry this over to the remote (if possible).
This would allow: a single key press to cycle through all the track-info
screens, as it is now, and a double press to toggle the one last selected
on-or-off (or better yet to turn the last selected one on for 3-4 seconds)
Holding down the info button to make it display for as long as you
hold the button (or for a timed period) would make some sense.

I still think the select-visual-while-info-showing function should
be replaced by something more useful, and see no reason why it couldn't
be info selection, freeing the info button to be a toggle.

--
Robin O'Leary