Listener;224509 Wrote: > iTunes is one music player program that has a decent user interface. > Its design decisions are not inevitable in a program with a good user > interface design. > > Bill
I think we are talking about two different things: 1. A good user interface design and user friendly interface 2. A user interface with a lot of customization possibilities I'm just saying that these two solutions might be hard to combine. It is not an impossible task to put a great user interface on top of SlimServer, but I feel that it would be a lot simpler to do if Logitech choosed to limit the customization possibilities compared to today. iTunes has a huge advantage in making a user friendly user interface for a number of reasons: - It only supports a limited number of platforms (Windows + MacOS) - It is has a fat/rich client user interface, which is possible since it doesn't have to be able to run on for example a NAS box. - It includes library management so music can be ripped and tagged and structured in the file system directly in iTunes. My personal feeling is that this is the major point why people feel that iTunes is easy to use and SlimServer hard to use. - Apple has one of the best design departments on the market, the design is the first thing that stands out on any Apple product, this isn't just about hardware design but also user interface design. Most of the above points is about limiting the number of options to the end user. So I guess that what I'm saying is that I think Logitech also needs to look at limiting the number of options if they want to build a user interface that is intuitive to first time users. But my personal feeling is still that the biggest improvement would be if a library management application was included or bundled with SlimServer. Now, I'm not saying that the SlimServer user interface is built on great user interface design, because this is definitely not the case. It could be improved a lot without limiting the number of options, but I think that if we want to reach the iTunes level of user friendliness, limiting options will make it a lot easier. By the way, I just saw the first time startup wizard in SlimServer 7.0 beta a few days back, and the improvement compared to 6.5 is huge IMHO. But this is just the initial setup, there is still a lot left to do regarding the user interface after the initial configuration. -- erland Erland Isaksson 'My homepage' (http://erland.homeip.net) 'My download page' (http://erland.homeip.net/download) (Developer of 'TrackStat, SQLPlayList, DynamicPlayList, Custom Browse, Custom Scan, Custom Skip, Multi Library and RandomPlayList plugins' (http://wiki.erland.homeip.net/index.php/Category:SlimServer)) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38090 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
