Foldable toolbar - questionable usability

[Leo Franchi]

On Jun 29, 2009, at 6:23 AM, Nikolaj Hald Nielsen wrote:

> I went over it again and tested a bit around and I am even less
> convinced about the real usability of your addition today.
>
> Which is fair, I am still trying to make up my own mind as well! :-)
>
> 1. It adds unnecessary complexion to the existing Amarok. Especially
> with the "symmetry" you added, we find ourselves with arrows that do
> precisely nothing on the left and which are not intuitive on the right
> neither.
>
> Yes. That was the very last thing I added. Again just to try stuff  
> out.
>
> 2. It is just plain ugly, sorry to be that blunt, but those green
> arrows have always been ugly, wherever they were.
>
> Sorry, but I am not even going to argue against this. The green  
> arrows was just the only icons I could find at the time ( had no  
> Internet access when I created this stuff ) that sort of illustrated  
> the point. I have no special love of these and would happily replace  
> them with something else, perhaps something similar to the "more"  
> icon used in the bracrumb...
>

If the issue here is the design of the arrows themselves, it might  
make some sense to talk to nuno or lee about designing different ones?  
Rather than just tossing out the whole feature due to some arrow design.

> 3. Adding those arrows everywhere for the sake of symmetry means also
> we will have to add a function to all the existing arrows, and this
> adds again more unnecessary complexity and we will have to invent new
> items to add, just because there are folding arrows? Come on, this
> makes absolutely no sense.
>
> No, the idea was that an arrow could be disabled (but still visible)  
> when there was no items. But when browsing through the categories  
> this would allow items to be there or not without changing the  
> layout and hence the symmetry. At least that was the though I wanted  
> to try out.
>
> I strongly vote against these folding arrows and suggest to remove
> those everywhere, including the context view. I am sure we can find an
> alternative way to add applets
>
> In the context view? Oh, the scrolling list has them... I am not  
> taking responsibility for those! :-P

It is very easy to rail against something that no one has

a) made any comments to me about
b) had any ideas for improvements
c) provided any sort of alternative artwork

(note that we have used those arrows since January, and there has been  
little to no feedback about them).

>
> I am quite disappointed, Amarok started to look nice and now it begins
> to suck again, complexity everywhere just because we listen to every
> fart the users come up with, and no, I am not sorry about the wording.
> Already the playlist options are too many, and the realisation doesn't
> fit in the general aspect, as we have now non less than 5 different
> menus, dropdown selectors, option choosers and tool boxes for the
> playlist alone!
>
> Sorry, I think you are on a wrong path here, please, make it easier,
> not more complex. I think we need an extensive discussion about the
> playlist in Gran Canaria before you even add more stuff, consensus
> first!
>
> Ok, now we are getting to the meat of the issue.
>
> We are currently miles away from any kind of a release and this is  
> exactly the time to try out new stuff. I have no issue discussing  
> and even removing any of this stuff is that is the consensus, but I  
> don't want to do this discussions in a vacuum, without having an  
> actual prototype to play with, hence I committed it. I hate trying  
> to figure out what will work and what will not as a pure though  
> experiment, hence I always prototype stuff and accept the bruises if  
> people tell me that it's pure crap. (contrary to legend, I am not  
> always right... :-)
>
> In the course of developing 2.0.0 we tried out a lot of stuff that  
> never made it into the final 2.0.0, but we learned a lot about what  
> worked and what did not in the process. This is the only sane way to  
> do development of something as complex as amarok in my oppinion.  
> Come feature freeze we should have decided what works and what does  
> not and the experimentation should be over. As you yourself say,  
> your oppinion changes as you play with it, something that would not  
> happen if we just discussed it as a theoretical change on a  
> blackboard.

I totally agree with Nikolaj here. It is impossible to achieve  
consensus on a "new feature" via mailing-list or IRC before beginning  
to code. Putting aside the fact that maybe about 50% (if even) of  
interested parties actually respond to any given email, consensus  
requires much time AND a willingness to hunt down people for a  
response (i have unfortunately done way too much of this in the last 8  
months).

Playing around with Amarok in svn, given that we have many months  
before release, is an effective way of sharing an idea and soliciting  
comments. As we have just seen, it immediately starts a conversation  
when people feel strongly about it---and that to me seems to be  
exactly the point.

Our upcoming meeting in GC is a perfect way to leap forward in terms  
of future plans/layouts/etc, like in Berlin, but I strongly disagree  
with putting off changes until we have a chance to talk them over all  
together. Way less would get done, and it would simply be demotivating  
imho.

cheers,
leo