>To me, in many cases, options is an indication that you haven't done >proper analysis of your users and you still want to try to satisfy >everyone. > That may be the case in some instances, but I don't think that's a generic rule.
I some cases, it can mean the opposite - you've done a lot of analysis and found that people aren't all the same and have different requirements. To meet all requirements and keep the main interface simple, you need settings. How those settings are presented and choosing sensible defaults is where the analysis needs to considered further. >Of course, it's usually not a good idea to skip >the analysis step, you will often realize the problem after a few >releases when you have ended up with a mess with options that aren't >consistent with each other. > An example of that is the Music Library settings for album artists and compilations. Those are very confusing options that cause no end of chatter in the forums. In fact the options are not that complex, and they are just presented poorly. Settings can be grouped together more intelligently, with better labelling. I think most people agreed with a few suggestions I made on a bug report, but those options haven't changed. It doesn't mean a reduction of options, or more options, just better presentation, more sensible layout. >The Custom Browse plugin is a great example of how bad it can get with >a lot of options. It can be configured more or less exactly as you like >but most users give up because it's too complex to configure. > >From memory, I didn't need to configure anything in order to use Custom >Browse. Install, and it just works. Many people don't need to configure menus, because they can be selected from a set of pre-configured menus. I consider that an advanced setting for music library browsing - it's not meant for all types of user. Over time, I made lots of little tweaks to the settings/menus. It's versatile - should be easy for users to use the basic features without visiting options, whilst provides a level of configurability that allows advanced users to get exactly what they want. _______________________________________________ beta mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/beta
