[geeks] fwd: The Seven Phases of Owning an iPod: UI

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 @ 11:55 -0500, kevin marshall said:

> I'm not terribly impressed with the iPods UI. Over the past 20
> years i've owned/used 30+ Walkmans and/or MP3 players and the
> iPod is the first one where i had to read the manual to figure
> out how to turn the damn volume down. I consider this bad
> engineering.

The original Walkman was easy was because it used button standards that
were present on all audio equipment and had been for years. Same for mp3
players that use the same controls.

Is that good design, or just one that was already familiar to you? 

I know a lot of people who still can't figure out a cassette deck, but
have no trouble with the iPod. They must have gotten at least part of it
right anyway.

I figured the iPod interface out in about 2 minutes, most of it
instantly.  The only things I needed the manual for were:

	- down-old to mark a song for the temp playlist
	- the reset sequence

It would be difficult to make either of those intuitive and elegant.

iPod interface follows the rule of discovery, which most other players
violate.

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["The determined programmer can write a
FORTRAN program in any language." ]