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The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

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

#201

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.

As always, there's an XKCD[6] for that. Albeit for the phone, but same idea.

Would be nice if the side buttons controlled ringer volume only when the phone is either locked or on the home screen. If I'm in an app of any sort, chances are the volume I want to adjust is the media, not the ringer!

[6] https://xkcd.com/1884/

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

#202
post #48
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.

I was grading an online exam yesterday. You're lucky.

This program used an SPA. The core workflow is hidden and split over multiple "tabs". Tabs include: question, given answer, score awarded. That's right, none of those are available simultaneously. Yes, 70% of its window goes unused when full-screen.

Going through all students can be done in (at least) two ways. In the first, you can press a button to proceed to the next student, but you cannot go back a student. In the other, you click "save" after grading each answer. This returns you to the overview of students.

The overview displays 20 students per 'page' (tiny font, tiny rows), irrespective of your window size. There is no "next student" button, you have to click the student you want to grade. If you're grading past the first page (e.g., student #21): surprise! You're back on page 1. Clicking the student's tiny row requires more precision than you'll need the rest of your work week on modern desktops.

I could go on. I will, actually. Apparently, standard workflow is you can never go back to an already graded answer and points awarded become final; I accidentally used a workflow that didn't have this idiocy).

In short, there is no way this product's core functionality was tested. Any tester would have exclaimed "are you kidding me?!", and have walked out. Or inflict physical violence on their computer. Or whoever hired them.

In short: setting this product on fire is the best reason for bringing back floppies in 25 years.

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

#206
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is in the same category of error as most programmers thinking that sRGB uses a linear light model. They try to do arithmetic like blending or blurring on the raw image data this inevitably does the wrong thing. Similarly, most non-AAA game engines ignore the sRGB tone curve and treat all inputs and outputs as if they were linear, which results in unexpected brightness shifts in textures. Up until very recently,…

Could you provide good documentation about such thing?

The classic video for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKnqECcg6Gw

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

#207
post #202
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.

I was grading an online exam yesterday. You're lucky. This program used an SPA. The core workflow is hidden and split over multiple "tabs". Tabs include: question, given answer, score awarded. That's right, none of those are available simultaneously. Yes, 70% of its window goes unused when full-screen. Going through all students can be done in (at least) two ways. In the first, you can press a button to proceed to th…

If it's an SPA, can't it be greasemonkey'd to display things properly?

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

#208

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…

To add insult, the notifications are a separate window on macOS. So when you use cmd+tab to switch _to_ Teams, you might end up in that notifications window. Even when there are no Teams notifications, that window remains. This is very painful when in full-screen mode, as cmd-tabbing to Teams simply doesn’t work.

I’m on the beta where you can switch to native notifications, but they’ve only implemented that (poorly) for chat notifications. Calls still use their own notifications. Poorly you ask? Well the notification doesn’t show the sender when posting in a group channel; it uses the group name as the notification title.

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

#209
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/hea…

Pretty sure Android's volume control isn't linear either. At least perceptively I find the steps relatively even (which implies it's not linear).
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