The worst volume control UI in the world (2017) • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by iamhamm » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 5:01 AM UTC

koyote wrote: post #178

mianos wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Paste a code block. Select a word in the code block. Copy and you get the whole block copied not the selected word. I feel like this used to work properly until a month or so ago. The worst bug I've seen, and this is also something that only started happening in the last several months, is select messages simply not appearing! So basically I open my computer in the morning and look at Teams and it'll have messages…

Mine is doing a variation of this now. If I’m on a call, messages stop coming through but I’ll see them on my mobile. When I end the call, they still don’t come in until I restart the app!

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

#182

Post by moring » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 5:02 AM UTC

Zak wrote: post #97

grawprog wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst is newer versions of android. You turn it up full, suddenly it's down to 3/4's full again and you have to acknowledge you want to turn it up, then turn it up again. If the headphones unplug, you gotta turn it up again. The same thing happens with brightness too. Turn it up full, suddenly, down to 3/4's again until you acknowledge yes, you really do actually want to turn your brightness up full. The first ti…

The first couple documented solutions for the volume warning on my new rooted Android phone didn't appear to have any effect. The volume warning is required by EU regulations, so it's hard to blame the OS maker for that. I do, however blame Google for increasingly trying to discourage rooting and providing facilities to app makers to prevent their apps from running on rooted devices. They could, however have implemen…

> The volume warning is required by EU regulations

But the regulations most certainly do not require the warning to pop up when the volume is still to quiet to hear that guy in the video talking, which is the actual complaint. If the warning actually appeared the moment when the volume is about to get really loud, it would be cool.

The underlying problem is, of course, that the volume control only slightly correlates with the actual volume that comes from the headphones.

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

#183

Post by gumby » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 5:05 AM UTC

geoduck14 wrote: post #146

gumby wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the teens in the house has discovered you can say “Hey Alexa shut the fuck up”. I’m afraid the joyless Siri just ignores you when you say that.

I would like the Alexa team to reward politeness. Like if you say "Alexa, please mute", you could unlock a new voice or a funny joke or something.

Creating a better world, albeit one spy-device at a time.

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

#184

Post by alex_young » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 5:06 AM UTC

One of my ‘favorites’ is Tesla’s model 3 volume control.

One simple physical roller, what could go wrong?

Well, if you’re trying to turn down some music to hear a navigation prompt, it actually turns down the navigation volume instead. One can actually turn the navigation volume completely off without realizing it, and now not only is your music still loud, you’ll probably miss your next turn as well.

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

#185

Post by moring » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 5:06 AM UTC

parsecs wrote: post #52

bllguo wrote: post #44

speaking of volume.. every device I've ever used is obscenely loud. On my phone (with headphones) even just 1 increment on the volume is too much at times; on my windows PC I basically never go above 10/100. How are these things calibrated exactly

It might be due to your headphones, if they're particularly low resistance.

If they are analog headphones, why can't the audio output measure the resistance and adjust the output signal accordingly?

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

#186

Post by srfvtgb » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 5:07 AM UTC

iambateman wrote: post #96

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…

Just in case an MS engineer is reading these Teams gripes… On Mac, Teams does not honor system-level Do not Disturb. So when I turn off notifications during a presentation at work and my friend sends me snarky comments about our boss…

My company was a fairly early adopter of Teams. I remember there being a user feedback forum that was such an optimistic place. Fixing notifications was one of the highest voted issues and the MS rep promised work was being done on it, but it never got fixed before we finally accepted the increased cost and moved to Slack.

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

#187

Post by heythere22 » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 5:10 AM UTC

mortenjorck wrote: post #107

iambateman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just in case an MS engineer is reading these Teams gripes… On Mac, Teams does not honor system-level Do not Disturb. So when I turn off notifications during a presentation at work and my friend sends me snarky comments about our boss…

Teams’ notifications on Mac are an ongoing debacle. Because they are Microsoft’s own implementation, rather than using the system API, not only do they not respect DND, they also helpfully get lost behind other notifications that come in from properly designed applications. According to the Microsoft admin updates I’m subscribed to, native notifications on Mac have been in a beta channel for months, with a full rollo…

You would think its better on windows, but it's not. The notifications ignore the global notification settings and pop up even when you only allow notifications with priority. And they are using their own implementation as well

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

#188

Post by LeoPanthera » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 5:10 AM UTC

alex_young wrote: post #184

One of my ‘favorites’ is Tesla’s model 3 volume control. One simple physical roller, what could go wrong? Well, if you’re trying to turn down some music to hear a navigation prompt, it actually turns down the navigation volume instead. One can actually turn the navigation volume completely off without realizing it, and now not only is your music still loud, you’ll probably miss your next turn as well.

All/most CarPlay enabled cars do exactly the same thing. The navigation and music volume controls are treated separately but there's usually only one physical control.

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

#189

Post by disillusioned » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 5:14 AM UTC

alex_young wrote: post #184

One of my ‘favorites’ is Tesla’s model 3 volume control. One simple physical roller, what could go wrong? Well, if you’re trying to turn down some music to hear a navigation prompt, it actually turns down the navigation volume instead. One can actually turn the navigation volume completely off without realizing it, and now not only is your music still loud, you’ll probably miss your next turn as well.

This sort of context-aware volume control is fairly common though, right? If you adjust the volume while you're on a call, it's adjusting the phone volume. If you adjust the volume with the door open, you're adjusting the door-open volume, but it'll persist to when the door is shut (so, regular media volume) for the duration, which isn't the worst case.

That being said, I get what you mean and why this would be frustrating. I've also had a call end and been absolutely ROCKED by how loud the underlying music had been because I forgot I had it set that high and the call obviously wasn't that loud.

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

#190

Post by disillusioned » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 5:16 AM UTC

This line:

>I’m sure a lot of people reading this has, at some point in their careers, felt that urge of innovating no matter what. An uncontrollable desire of redesigning something that hasn’t been redesigned for too long. It has to be recreated. And it has to be innovative. Right?

Made me think of the new Model S and its big dumb yoke. Elon literally reinvented the wheel, and for what? Poor ergonomics to fight 100 years of collective muscle memory and best practice, at a cost of reduced practicality with basic operations like parking, and safety when you move the blinkers and horn to capacitive buttons, and then have the ability to TURN the yoke upside down so that that their positions are inverted and your arms are crossed when you inevitably crash. It's complete lunacy and for no practical benefit. ("13-year-old-me would feel like I'm driving K.I.T.T." is not a practical benefit.)