Does anyone here have any experience with usability? I.E. care about usability ... enough to have a reasonable discussion about it ... and the problems with Amarok?

IF you don't know what I mean about usability ... see the following

http://www.interaction-design.org/

http://www.useit.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%E2%8 ... nteraction


t

This is an inflammatory and insulting comment totally devoid of any specifics that could be useful to developers. If you have specific suggestions for usability improvements, feel free to bring them to the attention of developers. But just asking "does anyone care about usability" is a flat-out insult, yes they care about usability.

Note that a lot of people just take what they like and try to pass that off as a "usability improvement". "I like this way better" is not the same thing as "this improves usability", so expect that people will challenge your claim that what you propose will actually have any benefit to usability, and that they won't take you seriously unless you provide specific evidence. I've seen too many people get offended when others challenge their claims that something will improve usability. You need to be prepared to defend your claims. If you aren't, then don't bother posting them because it will be a waste of everyones' time.

OK ...... you just proved my suspicion by the way ....

here's specifics .... WHEN I TRY TO BRING UP SERIOUS USABILITY ISSUES .... it garners immediate flame response .....


Here's specifics ....

1 - No REAL device support.... by real i mean intuitive device support that does not require a HACK. THis is version 2.3 and if I post a request to find out whats up with Device support I'm either given a blank response with a link to a web site with directions for a hack to make it work ..... OR .... I'm flamed ..... this has been going on for about a year....... I've even spent a great deal of time outlining all of the usability issues within the program and then been flamed to no end ...... SO again i ask ..

see the following

http://www.interaction-design.org/

http://www.useit.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%E2%8 ... nteraction


I would even get on board the KDE usability project and actually do a study on Amarok if someone asked, or it continued to be run i would gladly volunteer ....
HOWEVER,
There is still the MAJOR failure in design requirements, INTUITIVE DEVICE SUPPORT!!! ....

I can't even use the software until this part of it becomes stable .... and from my test vbox installation i have for the specific purpose of AMAROK, ITS completely un-intuitive and unusable.


Responding "it works fine over here" is about as usability responsive as "Just hold the iphone differently"....

in fact it shows that the whole of the amarok organization really isn't concerned about usability, but rather how pretty it looks with the latest QT widget ....


which brings me back to your original point

"This is an inflammatory and insulting comment"

you are 100% correct.

t

coacharnold wrote:1 - No REAL device support.... by real i mean intuitive device support that does not require a HACK. THis is version 2.3 and if I post a request to find out whats up with Device support I'm either given a blank response with a link to a web site with directions for a hack to make it work ..... OR .... I'm flamed ..... this has been going on for about a year....... I've even spent a great deal of time outlining all of the usability issues within the program and then been flamed to no end ...... SO again i ask ..

This is exactly what I was trying to warn you about. This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with usability. Please, read your own links and learn exactly what usability means.

coacharnold wrote:"This is an inflammatory and insulting comment"

you are 100% correct.

t

Because we all known insults, especially ignorant ones by people who don't know what they are talking about, are of course the best way to convince volunteers who are providing you software free in their spare time to listen to you.

Well, you could start by stopping to shout in your comments. Seriously, I have no inclination to even read it when I see capital letters and repeated and unnecessary question and explanation marks. Why don't you try to write in a more moderate and civil manner to start with? You didn't bother so far to give us the most important basic information when you complain about something (Amarok version, device brand and version, KDE version,etc.) but started to shout almost immediately. I really have better things to do in my spare time than losing time with people behaving like you do.

It is useless to point us to usability guides as we know usability very well, don't you worry about that, we simply don't have a developer currently who has time to work on the Media Device part, all the Media Device implementation was written in the past two summers as Google Summer of Code projects by a person who currently has no free time to work on Amarok.

Copying from the Playlist to media devices is work in progress, though and should land in Amarok 2.3.2 this autumn (provided the developer currently working on it finds enough time to do so, as his every day workload is quite heavy these days).

So instead of insulting people randomly, shouting around and thinking it useful to teach us unnecessary lessons, you could contribute with code or find us more developers who are willing to spend the majority of their free time on Amarok and also to maintain their code on a long term basis.

I wouldn't need to shout if you would listen mamRok your one of the people who don't ..... and who has instantly flamed me for posting usBility problems.... so in all seriousness ..... I've said it before ill say it again.....
Device support is a rrequirement ( do I need to explain what Requirement means from a usability stand point ?) We are on version 2.3 and it hasnt been mentioned since Google summer of code 2009 so ok .... as a user I see this as a problem ... when lyric support takes precedent over a main requirment ... that being sa id I'm glad it actually plays music ... if it didn't and i complained would I still get flamed?

My nick is Mamarok, you could at least have the minimum of politeness to write my nick correctly.
Did you actually read what I explained earlier? We simply can't invent extra time for developers who are already on a tight schedule. No developers with enough time, no improvement of code, as simple as that. If you really need the features so desperately, you could for example pay for it... Unless money falls from somewhere, the developers have day jobs to make a living and are by no means at your command. Period.

Ok mamarok
Id gladly buy it if it existed but it died with amarok 1.4 and was abandoned .... now what I'm asking for is a usability discussion without a flame from you ... is that possible ? .... I doubt you can take any non programming problems as being real problems and not critisism of the hard work programers do .... it has a lot to do with project management and design...

coacharnold wrote:Id gladly buy it if it existed but it died with amarok 1.4 and was abandoned .... now what I'm asking for is a usability discussion without a flame from you ... is that possible ? .... I doubt you can take any non programming problems as being real problems and not critisism of the hard work programers do .... it has a lot to do with project management and design...

Coacharnold: I think you need to take a deep breath and consider whether your always-on-the-attack strategy is getting you what you want. You say you've been complaining and getting flamed for about a year. How's that working for you?

Others here: Amarok 2.3.1 does have some issues. The fact that pre-touch iPods that work fine with gtkpod sometimes don't work with Amarok is a show-stopping bug. It looks like there's a related bug report in the KDE bugzilla. On usability: Part of "usability" is having obvious controls that perform the actions you expect of a piece of software. Sync the collection with a portable player. Create playlists and transfer them to the player. That sort of thing. The opposite of usability is an interface that is surprising. The three columns of the 2.3.1 interface change content in surprising and unpredictable ways as you explore the interface. 2.3.1 is less flashy than 1.4 (a good thing), while at the same time being more opaque. It offers fewer obvious things the user can do and is pretty-much undocumented. I'm sorry, but that's what I see. I don't expect a major re-design, since the programmer time to do it apparently is scarce. But, you should expect confused users to continue to have trouble. Arguing with said confused users, even when they get belligerent, doesn't help.

'nuff for now...

Paul

ok .... fine agreed .... but how much is it to ask for mass storage devices to work ...

someone in the design process wanted to be fancy and have amarok speak to HAL and avoid the "mounting" process .. but this means sacrificing user control of what gets mounted inside amarok ..... we sacrificed usability for something to look cool

or even still somebody identified having to mount a Mass storage device in the OS before mounting it in amarok as a problem .... ok ... lets have that conversation .....but
When I try to it is immediately flamed ..... so I come to the conversation with ALOT of baggage .... * Censored by the Board Administrator due to extreme Code Of Conduct violation *

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