V7 UI Impressions

[barney B.A.]

Originally Posted by David G

Not sure I follow. Are you comparing the iPhone to a 10 foot interface with remote?

I think he's comparing AppleTV or the Mac os to a 10 foot interface

[David G]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I'm posting this not to be combative, but to elicit more detailed responses as I'm not getting some of these things...

Absolutely, taken as such.

First, what would removing info gain us? How does extra information negatively affect the usage on the detailed info view?

If the information is not useful in some fashion, it's just noise. Example: I don't know about you, but I don't give a damn about the name of the network folder where the selected rip resides.

Second, I wouldn't expect most people to even go to that screen. I never go to the detailed info menu unless I'm trying to figure out something technical about the item. 99% of the time I just hit play on the list and it plays, never see the info screen.

It's not just the media info, it's also the detailed program info on the program guide for example. I offered suggestions on how to make it more legible/pleasing in another thread, without removing any of the actual content in that case.

I agree with your sentiments there, but I'm just not following what the problems were with either the old or new UI in regard to usability. I mean I preferred the Sage 6 UI to WMC in terms of usability. IMO it's worse to oversimplify than it is to provide too many options. I hate iTunes becuase it's way too simplified. I much prefer JRMC which as 100 times the options.

As far as the mainstream is concerned, you're in the minority. People will give up features in order to gain usability and simplification. I don't think we have to give up power and features to have a better UI with SageTV though.

As Brent said, Sage, as any PC based media solution, is by definition geared toward techno/power users. The only way you get to looking at PCs for this sort of stuff is if the super-simple (limited) CE devices don't cut it for you.

Fair enough. Again, it comes down to whether Sage wants to expand their user base.

I really don't follow this. What do you get rid of in the guide? I mean it's pretty much got to be a grid of programs. That's 2/3 of the screen on the guide.

The other 3rd is some context sensitive info about the highlighted program, and a picture/preview. What should go? Moxi's guide is perhaps "simpler" but IMO it's nowhere near as usable.

I offered suggestions in the other thread.

But the whole reason you go to Sage is because of it's power. If you're happy with basic, you'll probably be using your cable companies DVR or WMC.

What I'm saying is that we could have a better UI without dumbing down the program.

And for the main menu select-vs-right thing, I'm sure they'd love to hear any good ideas you've got about how to make that clear and work better. I've not been able to figure out anything.

If you're on an item such as a program listing or a piece of media, it makes sense to have different keys do different things (record, play, delete, etc). Navigation, on the other hand, should be much more straightforward. If there are two destinations, there should be two options, not one option with two buttons to use. Again, basic UI design, really.

[blade]

Originally Posted by David G

If the information is not useful in some fashion, it's just noise. Example: I don't know about you, but I don't give a damn about the name of the network folder where the selected rip resides.

I often look at the detailed screens to find out which folder a recording is in. Sometimes I want to run VideoRedo on a file to edit it or copy it to a removable drive to carry with me to watch if I'm going to be somewhere without internet access (yes those places do still exist). It's much easier for me to look at the detailed info than to scroll through 5 hard drives of shows to find where it's stored.

I don't care so much about where my imported videos are because I don't have many of them and they are structured so I can easily find them.

There are also times I want to know which tuner recorded a show, especially if there is a problem with it.

I see things about Sage that I personally don't have a need for, but that doesn't mean it's not valuable to someone else. I understand how you would see the extra information as unnecessary because you don't use it, but I think it's a mistake to think the information doesn't belong there just because you don't have a need for it.

[paulbeers]

All of the information you state is extraneous, I found extremely useful. I have multiple recording and import folders. If there is a problem with a recording and/or imported video, I can look right there and not hav to go chase it down. Secondly, tuners are very helpful (as already mentioned), if something didnt' record right, I know right there which tuner recorded it and I can track down the issue (extremely helpful since one of my 4 digital tuners is OTA and if I see that a bad recording was made with it, then I know it was due to poor reception).

Honestly, why wouldn't you want a lot of information available to at all times? Most of my TV's anymore are HDTV's. They are big and sharp. Why not give me all the information all on one screen. I've trained my eyes to use the whole screen and to look at what I deem important at that moment (ie. show details, video preview, guide, etc). I would rather not have to flip to various "secondary" screens.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by David G

If the information is not useful in some fashion, it's just noise. Example: I don't know about you, but I don't give a damn about the name of the network folder where the selected rip resides.

Like the others have mentioned, that's exactly the sort of info I go to that screen to find out.

My question to you is, how are you ending up on that screen? You really shouldn't see it much in normal use.

As far as the mainstream is concerned, you're in the minority. People will give up features in order to gain usability and simplification. I don't think we have to give up power and features to have a better UI with SageTV though.

I'm acutely aware I'm in the minority. But frankly that's why I use Sage. I'm not happy with the products with "simple" UIs targeted to "mainstream" users. iTunes and WMP are the two best examples I can think of. I hate them both because they're too simplified down.

Fair enough. Again, it comes down to whether Sage wants to expand their user base.

I'm all for Sage expanding their user base, but IMO they really shouldn't try to go after the "mainstream" market. "Mainstream" users are happy with the limited DVRs from their cable companies. They don't care about playing media off their PCs, or if they do, they don't care about fancy fanart or metadata.

Tivo had very poor results in the DVR market once cable and sat companies started providing DVRs. There's just no way for a multi-hundred dollar system to compete with $5-10/mo service for people who don't have a problem with the functionality of that product.

I offered suggestions in the other thread.

What I'm saying is that we could have a better UI without dumbing down the program.

Sorry, I think I lost it in the clutter of the other threads, I'll try and take a look.

If you're on an item such as a program listing or a piece of media, it makes sense to have different keys do different things (record, play, delete, etc). Navigation, on the other hand, should be much more straightforward. If there are two destinations, there should be two options, not one option with two buttons to use. Again, basic UI design, really.

Problem is you either end up with 30 items in the main menu, or commonly used features now have to be accessed through two or more layers of menus.

In any given period of use, I'll go to the Recordings screen through the main menu maybe 5, 10 or more times. In that same period I probably access any of the "sub" menu items (schedule, etc) less than one time. Most of those I never even use. I see no reason to force navigating through 2 or 3 menus to get to commonly used features.

Of course I'm also not big on the idea of having all the uncommonly used features burried in settings.

While the current scheme is new, I actually quite like it. But I would like to see a way to make it more clear what select vs right does.

[MeInMaui]

I still like the idea of help text in the footer fading in when an item has been focused for more than 0.5 seconds or so. This could have an option to disable when the user has become familiar enough with the UI.

I personally like the paradigm of 'right arrow' drills down, 'left arrow' backs out, and 'Select' performs an action on the focused item. It's just a matter of making it clear to the user what that action will be.

Aloha,
Mike

[rtrski]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

I still like the idea of help text in the footer fading in when an item has been focused for more than 0.5 seconds or so. This could have an option to disable when the user has become familiar enough with the UI.

I personally like the paradigm of 'right arrow' drills down, 'left arrow' backs out, and 'Select' performs an action on the focused item. It's just a matter of making it clear to the user what that action will be.

Aloha,
Mike

I strongly agree. The argument that 'a field shouldn't be able to do multiple things with different button clicks' is being a bit overly purist (Sorry DaveG) and is utterly overcome by reality in the UI world as proven by 2-button mice, or for that matter the existence of doubleclicks. Getting away from a computer-centric mindset toward more consumer electronics doesn't obviat e this: even cellphone touch-interfaces (which are rather similar to '10 foot' interfaces in my mind, given the innate lack of precision with finger-location) offer different behavior when you touch-and-hold, vs. tap, vs. touch-and-drag. And that sort of UI flexibility is considered the basis for ENHANCING UI friendliness, hence repeated implementation in iPhone OS, webOS, Android.... (That and multitouch gestures, but of course with multitouch the 10' display analogy to touchscreens breaks down.)

Perhaps the passively combatative "How intuitive" comeback sums it up and reinforces your response: if there were a clear visual indication that different buttons would do different things on a highlighted field, and that visual indication were provided clearly (and consistently throughout the interface), would the OP (and his presumably simplicity-loving UI-snobbish clone brethren who are all too afraid to touch Sage) have an argument?

Consider the MCE interface where you scroll vertically to put one 'field' in the "hotspot" so to speak, and that field's horizontal options then become available. I was always frustrated using a mouse that I couldn't just easily click to the field I could see off to the right or left and get it to activate...or rolling down to TV didn't immediately rotate the most frequently used horizontal option into the position where just selecting would enable it...I had to rotate it into either the 'right' zone or one to left or right only to get it to work. (*Note: describing Vista MC, haven't tried 7MC.) Using a remote, I found the repeated left-or-right clicks to highlight the selection I wanted equally annoying. Sage giving the option to click directly for a prioritized pick out of the submenu or arrow-right to bring up the entire submenu is an enhancement. But the criticism that it could be made more obvious with some sort of visual feature should be taken to heart.

[bastafidli]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

I personally like the paradigm of 'right arrow' drills down, 'left arrow' backs out, and 'Select' performs an action on the focused item. It's just a matter of making it clear to the user what that action will be.

If sage is this consistent, it would be perfect. I would actually add
'right arrow' drills down
'left arrow' backs out
'Select' performs DEFAULT action on the focused item
Menu/Info displays menu of additional options to do with the item

[David G]

Originally Posted by bastafidli

If sage is this consistent, it would be perfect. I would actually add
'right arrow' drills down
'left arrow' backs out
'Select' performs DEFAULT action on the focused item
Menu/Info displays menu of additional options to do with the item

Honestly, I could live with that if, as rtrski points out, it was obvious or intuitive what action did what. Clicking Ok/Enter on 'TV' taking me to the recordings is anything but.

Instead, all we have a little star next to the arrow signaling that a 'default' action is available - or so I learned in another thread. Again - super intuitive! Why wouldn't I know * = default action when Enter is pressed?

[David G]

Originally Posted by Brent

Hit the "option" button on your remote - that's how I do it at least.

I use a universal remote that I've programmed with the essential Sage functions, obviously I didn't put Options in there. Now the question is, if that feature is only accessible via the remote's Options button, what is it doing on the screen, looking as if it can be accessed via normal navigation - when obviously it cannot.

[rtrski]

Originally Posted by David G

Honestly, I could live with that if, as rtrski points out, it was obvious or intuitive what action did what. Clicking Ok/Enter on 'TV' taking me to the recordings is anything but.

Instead, all we have a little star next to the arrow signaling that a 'default' action is available - or so I learned in another thread. Again - super intuitive! Why wouldn't I know * = default action when Enter is pressed?

What if there was some sort of 'training' mode? e.g. Tooltips if you just stop on a given menu pick long enough, with the option to dismiss messages as you learn them (or disable completely in a menu)? Then even if the UI itself was kept clean and simple without some indication of multiple options on a given field, you'd have been taught to understand it?

That mentality seems to work okay with my Palm Pre - the software walked me thru a few gestures on initial startup. And on things that I can tap-and-hold, to get other options, I don't see any indication on the screen until I do touch and hold, then I get a 'halo effect' around the held item indicating I can do other things with it (besides just releasing, which makes it act like I just 'tapped'). The analogy isn't perfect because we don't want to camp on a remote button, but (despite my own passive-agressive antagonism in my last post) I am trying to make helpful suggestions.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by David G

I use a universal remote that I've programmed with the essential Sage functions, obviously I didn't put Options in there. Now the question is, if that feature is only accessible via the remote's Options button, what is it doing on the screen, looking as if it can be accessed via normal navigation - when obviously it cannot.

Just to clear up your confusion, nearly every UI change was made for a reason regardless of whether those reasons are obvious to you or not.

Why would there be a word called "Options" on the screen? Well, long long ago, back in the bad old days of the early-mid 2000s, new users couldn't figure out that there was an Options command and most of them didn't read the manual to find out that certain menu options could be changed. There was an endless stream of questions and complaints about not being able to do things that, in fact, were available. So, we added an icon bar on many menus making it more obvious that there were options that could be set on a menu. After an endless series of complaints about the icon bar, we decided that we would get it back out of the way. But, after removing the icon bar, we wanted the user to know that there were options that could be changed. We added text like "Use Options to change settings". Many testers who saw that long before you did said they didn't like that long text. It was distracting. Used too much space. It hurt their eyes. Could it be shorter? So, we simplified it and just called it "Options" so that maybe, just maybe, new users who had never looked at the manual would see it... eventually see the Options button on their remote and decide that pressing that Options button might do something and discover that SageTV could do more than they expected and be happy. Then, we though. Hmmm. Mouse users don't know that Right clicking brings up the Options menu. How could we solve that? Well, a mouse user might get angry at that word just sitting there and click on it. Oh Hey! We could allow the user to click on the Options word to bring up the Options menu. We rejoiced and made that change. We do regret that some users still do not like the seven letter word sitting on the menu footer, but then we remember that we had a solution for that too - Studio.

I discovered quite a while back that not every feature can be described on the first page of the manual where many people can see it, nor can every item in the UI have a full description of its use next to it on the screen.

Unfortunately, I haven't got the time to go into this much reason behind various other U changes.

- Andy

[Brent]

You mean there's a manual!
Disclaimer (manual is for v6.6 until further through the beta)

I've actually read quite a bit of that monster and there are some very useful tidbits in there. But I've found most everything is pretty easy to figure out regardless

[bastafidli]

Andy, I think what David was trying to say is that the main problem user would be struggling is the lack of consistency. Some things can be navigated to with remote (browsing folders, etc.), some maps to buttons on the remote (play, stop, etc.). Some look like buttons (playback buttons) and some don't (Options). Some have hints when you hover wiht mouse over them, some don't. Sometimes to navigate you have to go to top left corner, sometimes to bottom right.

These may seem like little things, but these little things are the ones which greatly influence usability and satisfaction. As it was suggested in some other threads (me, meinmaui, and others), there needs to be consistent navigation scheme, consistent and logical placement of elements, consistent behavior and look. Every element on the screen should be evaluated if it fulfils the intended role, if it is intuitive or if it is just taking space away and maybe can be replaced with other elements.

I think v7 is great improvement in look & feel, but the next step is to solve these little issues with usability.

Just few examples of what I have experienced so far (this is combination of old and new behavior):
On my laptop with placeshifter navigating with mouse:
- I already mentioned it takes too many clicks to navigate through folders in folder view
- No Next song/Previous song quick access
- The back arrow (top right corner) on my placeshifter is only 3-4 pixels wide
- Back using arrow in top left corner, Home using Sage logo in bottom right corner
- xxx by Folder in top left corner but to change e.g. to xxx by Artist it you have to go to bottom left corner to Options rather than just directly clicking on xxx by Folder
- Option has no visible hint
- Option menu can be closed only using keyboard or using right click outside of it


On my CRT 4:3 TV (yes, yes, we are still using the old TV :-)
- the status bar at the bottom takes too much valuable space and doesn't provide much useful information. It is even worse than the old toolbar on the left, since I could at least navifate to that one with arrows, here the status bard is not navigable at all.
- The mini player is now only half size, since the right column is taken with the list of folder. The 4:3 CRT TV has must less space to work with anyway and now the player got even smaller and harder to read and display less information. That is while the extra space given to the right column doesn't make that much difference. I think the Mini player should be across the whole screen and rather display more info about what is currently being played.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by bastafidli

Andy, I think what David was trying to say is that the main problem user would be struggling is the lack of consistency.

No, the post I replied to wondered why in the world would we put the word Options on the screen when a user with a remote couldn't select it. As far as I can tell from this thread, he can only see things from his own perspective & can't understand why anyone would do things differently from his view. That feedback is useless to us.

- Andy

[scoful]

OK - here's a little of my own personal reflection of my SageTV experience over the last half dozen years or so in regards to the 'UI' beef that people seem to get their panties in a bunch about.

First of all, I haven't installed 7 yet (but will be shortly).

I'm an IT person - and have owned computers continuously since 1981.

My wife REFUSED to touch a computer almost completely until almost 2000. She is NOT technically inclined at all and has little if any patience for technology that doesn't work flawlessly.

While I understand the 'confusion' about navigating through menus, the fact is that with a well configured remote control, SageTV is very easy to navigate to all the functions my family uses on a regular basis.

The main menu (or home screen) is almost NEVER used in my house. My kids press the button on the remote for Recordings, Music, Pictures, Videos or Guide to navigate virtually everything.

In my opinion, if one thing would make it easier for more non-technical users to use Sage effectively and easily it would be a standardized remote control available from Sage directly, preconfigured in the default STV and STRONGLY RECOMMENDED with purchase.

Many remotes have come and gone in my household - Hauppauge, Streamzap, Logitech and now Adesso's (which have a mouse function that is very handy for Hulu - although sadly it isn't programmable to turn off my TV, use TV volume etc).

I really feel like that's the user interface that should be standardized. It's way better than navigating through menus.

As far as suggestions for the ideal remote - some criteria I'd like to see:
1. Lighted Buttons
2. Learning for Power, Volume and Mute

Otherwise, the Adesso ARC-1100 has all the buttons - Recordings, Music, Pictures, Videos, Guide etc....

[bastafidli]

Originally Posted by scoful

While I understand the 'confusion' about navigating through menus, the fact is that with a well configured remote control, SageTV is very easy to navigate to all the functions my family uses on a regular basis.

Yup, I think it is important to distinguish there are 2-3 ways how user can navigate Sage: remote control, mouse, touchscreen. These all have different use cases. While you can setup your own shortcuts with remote control, you can't do so with mouse or touchscreen. There you have to do with whatever Sage gives you.

Try sometimes placeshifter with mouse and do a simple user case:
find your favorite cd, then play it, then while playing go check what the weather is and then try to either pause the playback or skip to the next song

With the current gui it is a killer.

[David G]

Originally Posted by Opus4

No, the post I replied to wondered why in the world would we put the word Options on the screen when a user with a remote couldn't select it. As far as I can tell from this thread, he can only see things from his own perspective & can't understand why anyone would do things differently from his view. That feedback is useless to us.

- Andy

I beg to differ.

First, "There's a button, what it is doing it here since I can't access it using a device that you sell (i.e. extender)?" is a legitimate question/concern.

Second, contrary to what you imply, I am actually putting myself in the shoes of a non-technical user. My ex-SO hated the Sage UI with a passion, even though I made the entertainment system as easy to use as possible (one-click-all-on, that kind of stuff). I'm a techie, he wasn't. I have no issue myself figuring out how to use SageTV, have been using it for years, but I'm severely disappointed that you didn't use this opportunity to start with a blank slate and redesign the UI from the ground up. Because. It's. Just. Not. Great. It does the job is the best you can say about it. (And it's still unusable in the music department, apparently!) All the people defending it here are old time users. Give a new non-techie user Boxee, and then give them SageTV, and see which they prefer.

And by the way, your justification is typical of a techie/engineer. "There are historical/technical reasons for this." Who cares! If it's out of place, it's out of place, no matter the reason. (Would it be so hard to not display 'Options' on an extender, but display it on a PC?)

Nice way to brush aside the concerns of a paying customer (who's already forked over the $40). The options thing was just one concern, and bastafidli perfectly nails it when he says it's all about consistency and predictability, but apparently you won't have any of that. A couple years ago, give or take, I suggested the following; when watching a ripped DVD, the system should remap the RW2 and FW2 buttons to prev and next chapters. "No need!" I was told "The page up/down already does this." I rest my case.

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by David G

The options thing was just one concern, and bastafidli perfectly nails it when he says it's all about consistency and predictability, but apparently you won't have any of that. A couple years ago, give or take, I suggested the following; when watching a ripped DVD, the system should remap the RW2 and FW2 buttons to prev and next chapters. "No need!" I was told "The page up/down already does this." I rest my case.

Wouldn't that be inconsistent since then the behavior is different depending upon what media you playback?

[David G]

Originally Posted by Narflex

Wouldn't that be inconsistent since then the behavior is different depending upon what media you playback?

No, that would be consistent and predictable because you're playing a DVD. The point is that not even an option for this was ever provided, and the answer was the completely unintuitive 'page' keys.