Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] GUI mockup... let's get this sorted once and for all

[Gareth Murphy <garethmurphy1 eircom net>]

On Wed, 2006-03-22 at 13:40 -0500, William Jon McCann wrote:
> Scrollbars pretty much suck.  If you can't see about, say, 7 items at 
> once then scrollbars really don't help you.

I agree that having about 6 or 7 items visible at any given time is good
measure for usability, point taken.

> I don't think this is true at all.  Most people with iTunes that I know 
> of have a huge source list full of playlists.  Let's do an informal survey:
> http://flickr.com/photos/tags/itunes/

Again, you are completely right... I myself have recently started to
create one or two playlists and I also should have remembered that many
people will have portable players in there too.

> Resizing issues become a real pain when you have three panes.  Look at 
> evolution calendar as an example.  And not always showing the queue list 
> makes it kind of pointless - you may as well use the Queue source 
> instead of sidebar.

True again... I was clinging at straws with that suggestion I must
admit. :P

> I don't think this is true.  One obvious counter-example is any portable 
> device.  Making assumptions about screen size and font size is generally 
> not so good.  Here's one of my personal metrics: the UI should be 
> perfectly usable with a 28 pt font.  This ensures that people with 
> vision impairment can use it and it also kinda makes sure it can be used 
> on small devices.

This is where I have to stop agreeing. Virtually no laptops these days
come with a screen size of under 1024x768. At 28pt on my 1280x1024 the
whole desktop became unusable, nevermind just Rhythmbox. I feel that
16pt is a good judge for visually impaired users, maybe even one or two
sizes more.

Either way 100% of the people out there are never going to be happy with
a single product, it's just a case of catering to the majority by
default and giving the right amount of customisable options to keep as
many of the other users as possible.

> So anyway, I think there are a few interesting problems if we want to 
> add album art as a sidebar pane.

Yes there are... perhaps we shouldn't put it in the sidebar at all? Que
mockup... http://www.flickr.com/photos/gazam/116485003/

Remember to read the notes on the image, then take a look at it full
size and let me know what you think.

P.S. Didn't get time to do the icons today unfortunately, but I've been
thinking about some designs and would like to know what the rest of you
feel? The idea of a simple box with a musical note sticking out of it
isn't so exciting... surely we could break away from the whole image of
an actual box? Banshee doesn't have an icon of a screaming Irish Banshee
for instance :D 

Regards,

Gareth