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The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

uxdesign.cc

81–90 of 119 posts

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

#81

I get it's not the same thing but I wish iOS had lower volume settings. As it is, if 100% is max volume then the difference between 0 and unit above 0 on iPhones is about 30% volume. Like, in the middle of the night when everything is quiet, if I was the set it on the lowest setting and make some game sounds I could hear it 2 rooms away with doors open. But, Apple decided you don't need to set it below 30%. Maybe the…

I face the same situation on Android, there is no way to play music really quiet on Sennheiser TW4. Isn't this also plugs manufacturer's fault? (not valid for apple obviously)

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

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you long press the volume bar in control center then it opens a larger version you can drag to adjust more precisely.

You are my hero! Does this get added to the list of worst controls though since it's so buried?

It's already included in the list, between the pricing UI and the Windows XP disks

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

#85
post #60
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s actually a really common implementation failure across all platforms. It crops up again and again, in virtually every new thing that people implement. It’s very common to see this problem when you activate a submenu of a menu, and want to move the mouse diagonally to pick some item from the submenu.

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/steering-law/

"Your request has been blocked..." That's a new 403 page.

If anyone has the same problem: https://web.archive.org/web/20260218142023/https://www.nngro...

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

#86
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted you - at least, I hope I did. HN's vote buttons have such poor UX that a) it's difficult to hit the right button b) it's impossible to know, after doing so, whether you even hit the right button!

There is either an unvote or undown option once you’ve hit one

Nowadays there is. For the first ten years or so, you just had to shrug and apologize to the commenter for accidentally and irrevocably downvoting them.

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

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you long press the volume bar in control center then it opens a larger version you can drag to adjust more precisely.

You are my hero! Does this get added to the list of worst controls though since it's so buried?

You can also just drag directly on the slider that appears on the side of the screen when you press the volume buttons

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

#88
post #47

This "article" just rehashes the top submissions from the reddit thread and then adds some surface level musings about UX. It also blasts you with a full screen subscribe popup, ostensibly in case you want to see more rehashed content.

Seriously, why not just link to the Reddit thread instead of this? It seems like every damn site has become a Torment Nexus.

In defense of this blogspam, the original posts were each individual submissions to /r/programmerhumor, so there's no easy way to link to a collection of them on reddit itself.

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

#89

I get it's not the same thing but I wish iOS had lower volume settings. As it is, if 100% is max volume then the difference between 0 and unit above 0 on iPhones is about 30% volume. Like, in the middle of the night when everything is quiet, if I was the set it on the lowest setting and make some game sounds I could hear it 2 rooms away with doors open. But, Apple decided you don't need to set it below 30%. Maybe the…

This is an issue in many audio players. Maybe not as bad as in iOS (I don't know, can't compare), but the steps when the volume is low are nearly always too large. I like to play audio on low volumes, especially in quiet environments, and it seems designers/developers don't cater to that use case. One step is too low are even complete silent, one step louder is too loud.

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

#90
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See here for how Amazon's mega menu was designed around this problem: https://bjk5.com/post/44698559168/breaking-down-amazons-mega...

It's slightly irritating to see Amazon get credit for that, when Bruce Tognazzini used that same solution 40 years ago when working on the classic MacOS interface! (Apple forgot about it again for OS X, but that's a different story.)

From the NN/g article:

"older versions of MacOS featured a menu designed by NN/g principal Bruce Tognazzini; that menu did not exhibit this behavior, but instead, used a vector-based triangular buffer to allow users to move diagonally. Unfortunately, in the years since, Apple has reverted this excellent bit of interaction design."

But I'm on macOS 15 and the menus seem to behave that way (the good way). Did they re-implement it?

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