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The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

uxdesign.cc

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Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#81

Post by nyanpasu64 »

rectang wrote: post #6

Nearly all volume controls suck because by and large the software world is ignorant of the fact that loudness scales logarithmically. 99.9% of volume controls scale the output linearly.

> 99.9% of volume controls scale the output linearly.

Wrong. Windows's volume output is the percentage squared, and Linux PulseAudio's volume output is the percentage cubed. Nonetheless I would prefer that the volume output was exponential (2^(slider position / constant)). This way, pressing the "volume up" key 3 times always increases the volume by a constant factor, regardless if you're on loud or quiet speaker/headphones. Additionally, on loud headphones, you won't have to fine-tune the volume in the very bottom of the slider (eg. 1 is too quiet, 2 is a bit loud, 3 is painfully loud).

On Windows, I hide the default volume control and instead use Volume2[1] set to exponential mode. On Linux, I haven't found a good solution for getting PulseAudio to use exponential volumes.

[1]: https://irzyxa.blogspot.com/p/downloads.html

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#82

Post by Groxx »

tedd4u wrote: post #77
itslennysfault wrote: post #70

Runner up is the touch bar on MacBook Pro. I really miss the simple volume up/down buttons.

Yes the touchbar slider is heinously bad. If my memory serves, you have to first tap one area to get a slider to appear and then slide that. I got the Air instead of the Pro basically for the hardware brightness / volume keys and lack of Touch Bar. It’s such a relief to use these keys without taking eyes off the screen and to not accidentally tap something on the Touch Bar that breaks flow. By the way, I think you ca…

As a hater of hidden UI like Apple has been obsessed with for several years (force touch, most of the touchbar, edge swiping (as convenient as it can be sometimes), etc): there is a way, but why would you ever try it:

Touch-and-drag on the volume buttons to immediately drop into a volume slider, relative to where your finger started.

It's a pretty nice interaction, honestly - better in most ways than the buttons alone I think, in part because you can be both more precise and make large changes faster. It's one of the VERY few places where I think the touchbar does something positive[1]. But the vast majority of people who would like to use it have no idea it exists.

[1]: ... except when the touchbar freezes while doing this, and continually sets "max volume! MAX VOLUME! MAAAX VOOOLLLUUUUUUUMMEEE!!!!" several times per second until you do a hard shutdown to stop it from blaring [whatever you were listening to] at you because it's also stealing focus from whatever's on screen so you can't even click the "yes please shut down" button. Then I'm somewhat less fond of it.

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#84

Post by srswtf123 »

mianos wrote: post #48
stefan_ wrote: post #36

I think the worst UI is simply the Teams one, because it presents as an app volume control but then simply controls the global device volume . Fuck off, you are not the only app running. But that comes second to the microphone gain control, which Teams similarly exerts unilateral control over - only this time through an automated algorithm that for some microphone types just ends up muting them entirely. It's wild, y…

Teams is the reference for bad UI. Paste a code block. Select a word in the code block. Copy and you get the whole block copied not the selected word. I could write a page of the issues like this. Maybe it would not be so bad if you only used Teams but when you use slack at the same time it is like someone is wacking you in the back of the head every few minutes.

Ever used Lotus Notes?

http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/lotus.htm

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#85

Post by titzer »

The volume controls in Tuxguitar are legitimately worse than some posted here. To adjust the volume of a track, you choose "View > Show Instruments" and then the unlabeled first circle in each row is the volume "knob". It's a "knob" because it is basically a circle with a dot with the 6-o'clock position indicating 0 and the 3 o'clock position indicating maximum. To adjust it, you click and hold (with no visual feedback that you have clicked anything active) and then drag up and down. Not side-to-side or in a circle, up and down.

I'm sorry to whoever designed this control for this very useful Free OSS. But goddamn that is bad.

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#86

Post by LeoPanthera »

temporallobe wrote: post #7

Car manufacturers are easily the winners here. If your car’s audio system doesn’t have a simple knob you can grab and twist, well, that just sucks.

I'm going to pre-emptively defend Tesla here, since they are usually the canonical touch screen example - Tesla cars have a volume thumbwheel on the steering wheel.

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#87

Post by gwbas1c »

In the mid 1990s, Aerosmith released their Cloud 9 CD with enhanced content for windows when placed in a CDROM drive.

The application always turned the volume up, all the way to max, whenever it started.

This immediately resulted in me emailing the developers complaining. Surprisingly, they replied! (Although I don't remember what the reply was.)

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#88

Post by TchoBeer »

jiggawatts wrote: post #20
jeffbee wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can twist mine as much as I like, but the radio comes on instantly and the software that cares about the volume knob being twisted starts about 3 seconds later.

I had one that would work, but only if you rotated the knob very slowly . So if you turned the car on and the music was deafening, you had to oh-so-slowly turn down the volume with one hand, while trying to staunch the bleeding from your ears with the other hand.

That's hilariously bad design

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#89

Post by tomc1985 »

itslennysfault wrote: post #70

Runner up is the touch bar on MacBook Pro. I really miss the simple volume up/down buttons.

Honestly the way the touchbar handles volume is about the only thing I like about it. It's also literally the only thing I use on it besides the software "ESC" button.

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#90

Post by cm2187 »

The volume control in VLC deserves a place somewhere in this list. It works fine if you click on it. But if you use the keyboard's up/down arrow keys, it seems to severely rate limit how fast you can increase or decrease sound. Not great when you need to stop a big bang from waking up your neighbors.
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