Label buttons - one more time

Lukas 1lukas1 at gmail.com
Sun Feb 14 23:32:34 CET 2010


According to http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html at
least in web sites users usually scan application in F shape. In
Amarok's case F shape covers labels, if staring point is play pause
button. Most people are following their look with mouse, so i think it
is rational to expect them to hover those labels.

Another point, is how other clickable things in Amarok are presented.
In short, not much of them looks like a real solid form buttons. Most
of them are represented by bold (Not true for breadcrumb playlist sort
navigation, but true for media sources navigation!!!! Usability bug?)
But barely all of them has hover effect, changing background.

So I do not see any reason, why labels could not be recognized as
clickable items, if similar hover effect as in breadcrumb/track in
playlist/etc (nice blue rectangle shape as background) would be used.
Might be it is worth to make labels font bigger (size is some sort of
indication of importance), at least the same size as used in
breadcrumbs.
Also shadow, as in Thomas last mockup, looks quite nice and eye caching.

The next task, is to help user to understand, that those buttons is
not "just some buttons, showing random tracks". but prev/next

This can be done easily using animation. Its almost done, but by the
time, i find it too fast. Making it ~0.5-1sec should be enough to
catch the eye.

This would also require to **delay OSD** appearance by ~3sec, as it
goes on top of toolbar, and despite its transparent, it takes all the
focus away.


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