UI Feedback from real users.
UI Feedback from real users.
- Subject: UI Feedback from real users.
- From: Herbie Robinson <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2002 16:05:42 -0400
Digidesign has just posted screen shots of the upcoming ProTools
release (
http://www.digidesign.com/news/hotnews/PTv6/) and the
criticism is just starting to roll in.
Here is some of the early criticism (from daw-mac, warning -- strong
opinions are expressed). I edited a bit to try and stick to one
topic.
At 1:33 AM -0400 10/5/02, Tim Glasgow wrote:
*shaking head in disbelief*
OK, so while i applaud digidesign for adding a pile of new
features that we've been bugging them for
<SNIP>
The most important thing of all, IMO, is the interface we stare at
for hours each day. Pro Tools' somewhat non-trendy but wonderfully
uncluttered interface has been its hallmark since the beginning. Few
audio programs pack as much information into an inch of monitor real
estate while still keeping it simple and easily legible without
having to squint and concentrate real hard. Let's face it; editing
audio the way we do now is a two-dimensional thing. One axis is time
and the other is tracks/amplitude. The only thing drop shadows and 3D
buttons do is waste CPU bandwidth and waste otherwise useful pixels.
Who designed the new edit window? What were they thinking? Someone
explain the advantage of moving the Grid/Nudge value displays to
where they now are while all the space goes to waste in the top right
corner of the edit window! (Cubase users should feel at home though.)
There's 12 pixels of grey uselessness above the toolbar buttons and
another 10 or so wasted below. Add that to the 16 used for the new
Grid/Nudge/Cursor "toolbar" and you've wasted 36 vertical pixels -
enough for two stereo track pairs in the smallest view. How does this
make sense? And we keep buying bigger monitors! The
Shuffle/Slip/Spot/Grid buttons are HUGE and i suppose that's
understandable to a degree; it's the place where newbies get confused
most often, but the play/rec indicator in the bottom left is still
green/red text on a white background rather than the opposite - the
one place where having a big block of green or red would make sense
(you could tell it was in record from across the room). Slightly
bigger cursor/sample value displays is nice, but the main counter is
no longer in bold text, which seems a step backward. They could've
made the main counter quite a bit bigger with the space they have.
i'm not digging the fact that the meters in the edit window are still
tiny if not smaller, but that's just my preference of never using the
mix window unless i have to. i won't rant right now on the new mix
window, except to say they dropped the ball on coming up with a
better visual indicator for the pan pots, which have always been
terrible.
i guess my point is that with all of us screaming for bigger
monitors and better ways to use them, why does digi have to make
every button bigger and more 3D and waste so much space with the new
interface? i might know the answer. Pro users have to be made to
compromise with the desires of the MI/Guitar Center crowd who ooh and
aah over pretty 3D graphics and fake knobs that try to make software
look like the hardware they can't afford to buy. When will people
realize that a computer monitor is not a physical control surface,
and many of the old paradigms need to be thrown out? Ableton Live is
an excellent example of efficient 2D interface (though the fader
arrows are too small). Funny how Performer/Logic keep doing tweaks to
make them look more like Pro Tools, but Pro Tools is tweaking things
to look more like Performer/Logic.
At 12:39 PM +0200 10/5/02, wheel wrote:
>All I gotta say is....it's the ugliest thing I have
ever seen in my life.
Be fair, Cubase is way uglier.
But still, this does seem to be a step towards the Christmas tree
approach to interface design, and in doing so partially wipes out a good
part of one of the major advantages PT had over the competition : the
clarity of the interface. Which seems a really, really bad move.
I would have thought that Digi would want to emphasise everything that
makes up the continuing _difference_ between PT and the competition, not
disguise PT as another Christmas tree in a growing forest.
It all makes perfect sense though!
Not to me. As many have pointed out, the use of screen real estate is
significantly less efficient, AND less rational than in previous
versions. Not good.
Everybody who
has been using it, can continue to use it without
learning a new interface.
Or not update and stay with a superior interface with more tracks
onscreen.
<SNIP>
I think that the big point being made here is that real users spend a
lot of money and effort getting as much screen real estate as they
can get the machine to support (as in two or even three large
monitors). Anything that wastes screen real estate (especially the
50/50 content to white space ratios that Apple's UI marketers are so
fond of) will not be well received by this crowd...
--
-*****************************************
**
http://www.curbside-recording.com/ **
******************************************
_______________________________________________
coreaudio-api mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/coreaudio-api
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.