From: M. OReilly <moreilly_at_moreilly.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 12:59:34 -0400

>>I think Recorder 20 (the one I got) has reasonably good UI. <<

I agree.

For the most part, it's not the UI of the Archos default firmware that is
the reason for the Rockbox, IMO. I think it's more the lack of
functionality that prompted this to start. (Am I right, guys?)

>>Archos is a player - not workstation. So its UI must target player end
users. And those people are not computer gurus like most people developing
the software. <<

My original point was just what you say below - that a cohesive,
well-planned UI for the Rockbox, whether it follows the same conventions as
the original Archos or not, will be more usable by a non-technical audience
(and even a technical audience).

It's not that the current Rockbox UI is bad, even... I haven't had any
problems navigating it. But as the project progresses in size and
complexity, it seems logical to make sure we don't paint ourselves into a
corner.

While I agree that the majority of the users of the Archos will be people
looking to play audio only, I think that there will still be a large segment
of the user base which will use its more advanced features (i.e., recording,
etc.), so we should not exclude one functionality set for another.

It's possible, with a well-planned interface, to include all the
functionality without confusing the average user. Microsoft does not have a
good handle on this - they seem to think that to make things simpler for the
average joe, they need to reduce the functionality to the exclusion of those
who know what they're doing. Gnome had exactly the opposite problem (can't
wait to check out 2.0... Gotta reload my linux partition, hmmm...), they
had too much functionality without the ease-of-use.

So I'm hoping that what I propose will lead us down the middle of the road -
the best of both worlds, without excluding either.

Matt

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-rockbox_at_cool.haxx.se [mailto:owner-rockbox_at_cool.haxx.se]On
Behalf Of Alex Gitelman
Sent: Tuesday, July 02, 2002 12:31 PM
To: Kjell Ericson
Subject: Re[2]: The UI design


I think Recorder 20 (the one I got) has reasonably good UI. There few
things that I would improve but calling it "unusually bad"
is a little too much.
Worse thing is particular button design (positions of plastic
buttons). But there is not much that can be done about it (and
stickers will not help).
Now one thing I always wanted to mention. Archos is a player - not
workstation. So its UI must target player end users. And those
people are not computer gurus like most people developing the
software. You can not just say to some guy - "Go and put stickers on
your player 'cause we think original ones are bad". He/She has
printed manual that describes what buttons do and best would be to use
the same button assignments.
It would be nice though to be able to reassign buttons but in my point
of view it's not the highest priority task.
Best...
Alex
P.S. I don't know if it's reported as a bug or request but Rockbox
seriously missing the bottom menu that shows what context buttons do
at the moment.
Received on 2002-07-02