Sage6 GUI flaws in abundance

[stevech]

I purchased Sage 6 as an upgrade.
The user interface in sage 6 has far too many negatives as compared to v4 and v5. So many that I cannot choose it for use by the family here.

The primary issue is that the Sage 6 UI was designed with no consideration of if it is practical for 800 x 600 displays, and the even smaller MVP format. Many or MOST displayed items in Sage 6 use smaller fonts that are ILLEGIBLE on the MVP or at 15 ft. Worse yet for people that don't have 20-20 eyesight.

Worse yet, the Sage6 EPG that displays on my server and on my client for some reason changed the format so that there are fewer rows of channels displayed. See enclosed.

The GUI designers need to go back to square one and "eat their own dog food" - look at the result on an MVP or small format. Don't design based on the PC screeen appearance.

Until these things are corrected, I cannot go to V6 much as I'd like to, due to a very vocal WAF vote of NO! It's awful!

enclosed: one example among many of UI poor design; in this one, leftmost is Sage 4, right is Sage 6 with fewer rows displayed. This is just a single example of lack of attention to real-world usability at 800 x 600 and smaller and from across the room with eyeglasses. Perhaps there's an arcane setting to change the example enclosed, but it's just one of many flaws.

Sage is reliable and doesn't crash as a DVR, but the UI goodness just as important.

[CollinR]

OMG, how about...

A. RTFM

B. Config your system to your tastes

C. Eat crow.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by stevech

enclosed: one example among many of UI poor design; in this one, leftmost is Sage 4, right is Sage 6 with fewer rows displayed. This is just a single example of lack of attention to real-world usability at 800 x 600 and smaller and from across the room with eyeglasses. Perhaps there's an arcane setting to change the example enclosed, but it's just one of many flaws.

It is obvious that YOU customized the one that shows more rows because it has always defaulted to 5 rows of channels on the guide screen. The "arcane setting" to change it is called the Options command & is explained in the manual's section for the Program Guide menu.

- Andy

[reggie14]

I haven't been a huge fan of the Sage UI, but I think it looks fine at 10 feet away and my eyes aren't great either. I don't have a problem reading anything on my TV using the MVP with the UI at default settings.

Since you're complaining about it on 800 x 600 displays I'll assume you're using a computer. In the client and on the server is *very* easy to change the Program Guide options. Right click on the window at the program guide screen and up the font size all you want. Presumably you've done that before based on your attached screenshot. You can do the same thing with the MVP by hitting the Options button (the yellow button on the remote).

And actually, I'd like to point out that I like most, if not all, of the UI changes made in the beta. I think Sage knows they need to do some work in that area and its good to see them making progress.

[stevech]

Originally Posted by Opus4

It is obvious that YOU customized the one that shows more rows because it has always defaulted to 5 rows of channels on the guide screen. The "arcane setting" to change it is called the Options command & is explained in the manual's section for the Program Guide menu.

- Andy

I did not alter the out-of-the-box config.

[gplasky]

I think maybe in the beta it MAY default to the 2 line display for channel name and number. Just change to 1 line. Other than that it should be a 5 line display in the EPG by default. Always has been. MVP is all the wife uses and has been very happy with some of the changes she sees. She uses the MVP on a 15" LCD Aquous and a 26" Sony XBR. She never had a problem reading anything on screen. You'll need to provide better examples to really make your point.

Gerry

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by stevech

I did not alter the out-of-the-box config.

Riiiiiight. I wonder who changed it to use 7 channel rows in your v4 screen shot? If you don't remember doing it, then you should ask the other people in your family, because maybe someone else changed it when you weren't looking.

Five rows of channels on the guide screen has been the default configuration for a long time. You can check out that attached screen shot from the v2 manual. As you can see, the row count was 5 even back then. I also have a copy of the v4 manual & it shows 5 rows. You should have a newer manual in your SageTV directory to see its layout.

- Andy

[stevech]

I found the yellow button on the MVP is the escape that brings up the guide options, allowing one to change the guide setup.

I have no reason to fib; this was the first time I ever used that guide setup menu!

So now I know how to tweak it.

Thanks

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by stevech

I found the yellow button on the MVP is the escape that brings up the guide options, allowing one to change the guide setup.

I have no reason to fib; this was the first time I ever used that guide setup menu!

So now I know how to tweak it.

... and since you didn't know how it got changed in the first place or how to change it, you assumed it must have been a horrible UI design change that you found intolerable and griped about how bad a decision it was, instead of simply asking about it. Those types of posts are such a delight to read.

- Andy

[tchapin]

I've got to butt in; there's too much snark in this thread.

The SageTV default UI has tons of UI problems. Almost any complex piece of software will, especially one that allows heavy customization.

As someone who's evaluating Sage for purchase, the level of nastiness in the responses to the initial query are off-putting. I'm not turned off to the product, but I wonder how many people have been due to hostile interactions here.

Sure, the original guy was pretty bombastic, but every interaction on this forum, even by non-Sage employees, reflects on Sage and it's brand.

I asked an obvious question the other day (not that this one necessarily was or wasn't) and got a very helpful answer, which certainly improved my opinion of the software, the company, and the community.

Todd

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by tchapin

As someone who's evaluating Sage for purchase, the level of nastiness in the responses to the initial query are off-putting. I'm not turned off to the product, but I wonder how many people have been due to hostile interactions here.

I was wondering if someone was going to mention that...

First: you've only been on the forum for a very short time: welcome to the forum. But, with your short history here, you don't see the full history of past interactions with certain forum members.

I think you'll find that most responses to decently worded questions around here are quite helpful... when the questions are posed as questions rather than angry diatribes.

However, some people tend to not ask a question but immediately go into attack mode, often about something they don't understand (as was the case in the UI example in the first post here). I long ago stopped replying to this person, until fairly recently when I thought he might have changed his attitude towards others. I found that I was wrong & he simply seems to like going on the attack (at least towards anyone at SageTV; see below) -- the "shoot first & ask questions later" school of posting. So, I completely ignore people like that unless they post something that is just absolutely wrong, as was done here w/the prime example of his gripe being a reduction of the number of channel rows.

What is it I don't like in this thread? ... a couple things:

1) Wrong info: If I know some info is wrong, I post corrections about it so that the wrong info doesn't confuse anyone who doesn't already know the right answer.

2) Gratuitous griping: You don't like the decision to have 5 rows as the default? That's perfectly fine. Of course you can post your desire that it default to some other value, and even ask whether it is possible to change it (it was made customizable a long time ago based on user requests here in the forum)... but to customize it yourself & then forget you did that (or else not know that someone in your house changed it), then come to the forum blasting the poor UI design decision to change it from 7 to 5 is just not an acceptable way to act, in my opinion. Even though I just said that I tend to ignore this person, if he had simply mentioned that he noticed a change in the number of channel rows and _asked_ what had happened and was it possible to change it, the responses here would have been much different. (Am I reading too much attitude into the first post? That's entirely possible because I'm probably reading it in the attitude he has shown towards anyone at SageTV in the past. He seems to treat everyone else decently, so I try to let others answer him.)


If you think the UI has issues, then bring them to our attention. We paid attention to the recent feedback about some of the UI changes for v6.2... not everything was changed the way that forum members requested, but the comments were considered and some were acted upon, as has happened in the past. But, the people who made constructive criticisms about why they thought a change didn't work as well as how the UI handled the same thing in the past were listened to more closely than the ones who posted something along the lines of "I hate this. What the ^%^$^ were they thinking. It's stupid." and left it at that. For more about the attitude of a post, check this old post, especially its last sentence.


Thank you for your concern about this topic and I hope your questions receive the answers you are looking for.

- Andy

[stevech]

de-snark...

I reiterate kudos, as above: Sage's DVR core is very reliable. No crashing. No messy screw-ups as is so common in Microsoft-based stuff these days.

I've persisted by merely jamming the family TV over to v6.1.9.3. Now the WAF for Sage 6 via the MVP instead of S-video from a PC, is a C-. Was B+ with v4. At least this time there was: "well, I'll try it for a week". Object if you will, but the non-geek user's grading is what counts.

I really wanted to go to the MVP to get the Sage PC out of the house and into the garage - with a RAID1 for video. That's what I have now.

Some open UI issues include:
too-small font for show episode names in the display for a recordings folder.
too-small font in several other screens
Now there are more button-push steps to simply view a recording
Several often used menus have the most-often done choice not at the top, but in the middle. Such as delete a recording. Leads to yet more button pushes.

with the MVP using s-video to TV, the black font on silver background (selected menu item) is smeared badly - because the font's width is too few pixels for this kind of video. A cure would be to not use silver - black-to-silver is too much high freq. for NTSC; use less contrast. I don't believe there's a user-selectable choice for changing the silver (other than the full Studio toolkit).

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by stevech

too-small font for show episode names in the display for a recordings folder.

That's most likely a result of font shrinkage for long episode names. For short names, the font is the same size (to my eye, anyway) as in the episode descriptions.

I agree that fonts should not be shrunk in this case, and that the episode names should be truncated instead.

Originally Posted by stevech

Now there are more button-push steps to simply view a recording

If you highlight a recording and push Play, it starts playing immediately. That hasn't changed as far as I know. If you push Select instead, then you get a pop-up menu of options. Is that what you're referring to?

Originally Posted by stevech

too-small font in several other screens
Several often used menus have the most-often done choice not at the top, but in the middle.

You're probably more likely to get the changes you want if you say specifically which screens and menus you're talking about.

Also, your requests to the dev team are more likely to be noticed and acted upon if you submit them via the bug report form (politely worded, of course).

[reggie14]

I think tchapin has a point. Its something I noticed a long time ago, but the fact that tchapin saw it in just a matter of a couple weeks makes me wonder if its getting worse.

My observation has been that nearly anytime someone says something critical of Sage you see a bunch of people go on the counterattack to support Sage. If there's a good answer to the question it always comes out eventually, because the people here really do, for the most part, want to be helpful. If there's not a great solution, there often seems to be some Sage "apologists". Now, I think its great that Sage has developed this following, as its largely that group that we can thank for all the good information on these forums. However, I think we often see people acting as Sage fanatics, rather than Sage fans.

By the time a lot of people post something on these boards they're pretty pissed off. That doesn't excuse rude behavior and comments, but it does make them a little more understandable. The responses here were a little more rude than I think the question warranted. Yes, the specific complaint is well-documented in the manual. Just say that and move on.

stevech-

I think you have a couple good points in your last e-mail. Personally I like the default font size, but its understandable that some people would find it too small. It some places its really easy to change the font size (like the Program
Guide), but I don't see where to change the font size on the recordings screen (sort of using studio). This would probably be a good improvement. Moreover, while I wouldn't want Sage to up the default font sizes, maybe they should distribute an stv that would have larger font sizes, maybe even a higher-contrast color scheme too.

Also, some of your other points have been pointed out before, and are addressed in the 6.2.8 release client. For instance, that extra menu that pops up when you go to view a recording can be easily disabled. Even in older versions you can avoid it by hitting play instead of enter to watch a recording, and right-arrow instead of enter to view a folder. The delete issue you pointed out is changed too- the top option now confirms deletion, whereas I think it canceled out before.

As for the MVP smearing issue, I'm not sure what you're talking about. I haven't noticed anything like that. Its possible that your TV may not handle s-video well.

[stevech]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

That's most likely a result of font shrinkage for long episode names. For short names, the font is the same size (to my eye, anyway) as in the episode descriptions.

No, the names are short. The "1" icons have a lot of blank space between them and the last letter of the episode name.

I agree that fonts should not be shrunk in this case, and that the episode names should be truncated instead.

this was discussed 2-3 months ago and it was said that this is a UI design bug. I wonder if this was addressed in 6.2?

If you highlight a recording and push Play, it starts playing immediately. That hasn't changed as far as I know. If you push Select instead, then you get a pop-up menu of options. Is that what you're referring to?

v4 (and v5) worked by pushing OK; I will try to "retrain" people to use "Play". But the button pushes in the sequence up to starting the playback have all been using the OK button, so flopping down to the play button is counter-intuitive. I can imaging that the business pressures from competing products and HD technology are daunting.

You're probably more likely to get the changes you want if you say specifically which screens and menus you're talking about.

Also, your requests to the dev team are more likely to be noticed and acted upon if you submit them via the bug report form (politely worded, of course).

My experience in requesting support from Sage has been that for UI items, the polite response is "that's the way it is", and the implication is that resources don't permit attention to such things among the developers. I feel that Sage's limited resources are prudently focused on the core, not the UI. But there are some UI things that are not user-changeable. I can imagine that the business model pressures at Sage, given Microsoft's media products, and the impact of HD, are daunting.

[stevech]

Constructive comment...

see enclosed screen grab v6.19. Looks great on a PC. Not so via the MVP.

The rows that list the recording names (such as "4. Meerkat..." are using a too-small font - 60 year old eyes can't read it across the room, despite large TV screen. The larger font near the top is OK.

The MVP makes this far harder to read, due to its raster size being small - and, not shown in this graphic, the too-high contrast between black-on-silver is beyond what the MVP's video bandwidth and pixels/inch can do. Nor the TV. The fonts look like they have white shadows on the silver backgrounds, but it's badly smeared. The UI designers need to look at their work via the MVP on a modest CRT-based TV.

episode names way too small to read across the room on Std Def TV; may as well omit them - only 5 of 10 were listed anyway. Personally, I'd delete the list of episode titles and the video window, thus making room for more rows in the recordings/folders list - which is what the user wants to see any darn way!

[stevech]

another example.

I'd say that the most common thing in this menu is to delete recordings. The delete choice is not in the top of the menu's list where it belongs. (you would not access this menu to "play now", you'd push the play button).

If there's a quick (fewer button pushes) way to delete recording(s) in a folder, I haven't found it.

[Hector]

That would be the most common thing for you. But for me as a mouse user it's 'Watch Now'. Having Delete at the top is a really bad idea, I'd never want delete to be the default for an accidental click or a couple of 'selects' from the remote.

I don't say that to argue the point because how it should work is just a matter of opinion. And THAT's the point. Sage is used a lot of ways with a variety of interfaces. 'Should be' can be very very subjective.

peace . . .

Originally Posted by stevech

another example.

I'd say that the most common thing in this menu is to delete recordings. The delete choice is not in the top of the menu's list where it belongs. (you would not access this menu to "play now", you'd push the play button).

If there's a quick (fewer button pushes) way to delete recording(s) in a folder, I haven't found it.

[Opus4]

OK, so if we are starting over again...

I feel like I should first point out that you are offering feedback for an outdated version: v6.1. Version 6.2 is in RC mode, meaning it is almost ready for release, but you are using examples from v6.1. Pretty much any answer will include "try v6.2 & see what you think", because many screens have been overhauled. Even the button style has been changed, another item mentioned somewhere above.

Some comments on specific feedback:

Originally Posted by stevech

The rows that list the recording names (such as "4. Meerkat..." are using a too-small font - 60 year old eyes can't read it across the room, despite large TV screen. The larger font near the top is OK.

The MVP makes this far harder to read, due to its raster size being small. The UI designers need to look at their work via the MVP on a modest CRT-based TV.

I qualify as a developer of the STV and use it on an MVP regularly, connected to a 27" SD TV; I see no readability problem even from across the room. (I do wear glasses, or else I couldn't read anything more than a couple feet away.) If I had been unable to read items on menus, I would have looked into changing it, so you cannot say it has been ignored.

Shrinking fonts was mentioned somewhere above & this is an issue for really long titles in some places. The episode list at the top uses shrink to fit font size, but the list of recordings at the bottom does not. Anyway, this issue is known & still something we plan to look into.

episode names way too small to read across the room on Std Def TV;

You posted about that here & I replied that I made a change for the v6.2 beta at that time. You didn't try the change.

may as well omit them - only 5 of 10 were listed anyway

I, and others, like to see the list of episodes in the group. (BTW: In thumbnail mode, the episode list scrolls as the thumbnails change, so it eventually shows them all. Maybe row mode will do that too sometime.)

Personally, I'd delete the list of episode titles and the video window, thus making room for more rows in the recordings/folders list - which is what the user wants to see any darn way!

That's your personal opinion & it most likely won't be acted on in the default STV -- it takes away from the amount of information presented to the user: the description for a highlighted show or the list of episodes in a group.

You could look into the hidden malore menus -- you can make the top area fairly small, set the number of rows you want to see, and set the base font size it will try to use.

Originally Posted by stevech

I'd say that the most common thing in this menu is to delete recordings. The delete choice is not in the top of the menu's list where it belongs. (you would not access this menu to "play now", you'd push the play button).

No, the most often used item is the top one: Watch Now. Why is this the most often used item? Well, if you record something, you are probably going to watch it. Deletion is only something that you might do at that point, since SageTV can delete the recording automatically when space is needed, or you could choose to delete the recording using the 'request-to-delete' pop-up that appears when playback for the recording reaches its end. If you have this feature disabled, you should consider enabling it.

Yes, the Play button is a shortcut to that top action, but many new users (or even some long time users) don't know the shortcuts and need the pop-up menu to help find all possible actions.

If there's a quick (fewer button pushes) way to delete recording(s) in a folder, I haven't found it.

The manual has a whole section detailing the items in that pop-up options dialog. On p. 37 of the v6.1 manual, it states that the Delete command is a shortcut for this. If you don't have a delete button on the remote, you could assign one. There is obviously a downside to this shortcut suggestion: if you don't have a button to dedicate to this command, then this shortcut won't work for you.

You can even use the Delete command on a group of recordings to delete everything in the group, or just the ones that have been watched.

And, the sections of the manual for those pop-up options are linked on the second page of the SageTV Recordings section (p. 33 for v6.1). The blue items in the PDF are hot links to other places in the manual, so you can click on them to jump to more details about items in blue.

- Andy

[stevech]

thanks for the point by point response

I'll wait for 6.2 final to come out. I took a big enough risk to the WAF by going from v4 to 6.x, and it suffered. I see why it's not uncommon to read that there are many users till on v2!

We all know that many people resist significant change to something they're satisfied with or accustomed to. It's human nature. So forcing major, not minor changes, is bound to raise ire. Such as no way to turn off the episode names and video preview window in 6.1. And the added options menus. And requiring use of the PLAY button instead of the habit-trained OK button to quickly start a playback.

As to the DELETE not being in the top of the menu - if you do mistakenly click it, Yet Another Menu comes up for "are you sure?".

Be ever sensitive to how easily you can alienate users (User says: "Oh screw it: get TiVo, get TWC's DVR; I'm hooked on the concept, not the product") - honk up the UI and the superb underlying core product is overwhelmed by the user perception. We all know that.

Ease of use for the most common operations. That's what counts. More features are nice, if they're non-obtrusive to the main-line usage. Fewest button pushes. Always.