Usability: Where to start?

[Mark Kretschmann]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 8:10 PM, Celeste Lyn Paul <celeste at kde.org> wrote:
> Thank you for the invitation to participate in Amarok! I hope we can work
> together and make Amarok rock even more.
>
> Normally I would start things with a UI review, but Mark mentioned he didn't
> want anything too formal. Are there any particular areas you were concerned
> about and want me to look at first?

Personally I'm unhappy with some aspects of the "Playlists" browser
(sidebar; we call them browsers). Some things that I find confusing
about it:

*
Why are Podcasts in the "Playlists" browser? To me they seem more like
Internet services. The last place I'd look is probably in that
browser. I've heard about similar confusion from other users too.

*
Every newly created playlist in the "My Playlists" section gets the
same name "new playlist". The least we could do is automatically
number them "New Playlist 1", "New Playlist 2", etc. Or we could ask
for a name immediately, via dialog box.

*
I think the QToolBox widget used in this browser has some general
usability issues. E.g. it can be hard to spot the additional tabs at
the very bottom of the widget. I've talked this over with some Oxygen
developers, and they agreed that this widget is not really optimal.


I'm attaching a screenshot of my current Playlists browser, to help
illustrate the issues.

-- 
Mark Kretschmann
Amarok Developer
www.kde.org - amarok.kde.org
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