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chumbysphere forum → Feedback → I tried to warn you
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23377371/
The very first criticism the author makes:
"But if you want to jump from one widget to the next (say you're heading out the door and want the weather forecast) you have to mash the top of the Chumby to get to the control panel, then forward through the available widgets one by one to find the one you want. It's a slow and annoying process."
My only feedback:
http://forum.chumby.com/viewtopic.php?id=847
I never found this to be a problem. I do this all the time in the morning. If I want to go directly to the weather widget (or woot or whatever else I check in the morning), it never takes more than a few short seconds to get to what I want.
I'm puzzled as to how the author thinks it's a slow process.
I have found that getting certain information in the morning is as simple as setting an alarm for 5am with no audio and specifying the channel I wanted. I have it load a channel I call NEWS which only has the things I want to see first thing in the morning.
Of course tricks like this aren't something that someone doing a quick review for a couple of days would think of.
MyridoM
Another idea on how to deal with this, would be to allow every channel to have an id number and be able to key it in via the control panel .. it be nice for direct access to a widget...
There needs to be one button widget and or channel switching. End of story.
I agree channel switching could be easier - the new control panel actually added an extra step, which I thought was counter-intuitive. Switching channels now requires how many presses?
1) Press top button to access control panel
2) Press 'Channels'
3) Press 'Change' (this is the extra step that was added)
4) Select channel
5) Press 'Change'
6) Press 'Hide Control Panel', the widget area or the top button to exit Control Panel.
6 presses to change a channel is excessive and I have yet to understand what was gained by the extra step introduced in the most recent Control Panel - can anyone enlighten me? Are the Reload, Info and Accept buttons really used enough to warrant this extra menu?
As for widget-switching, don't be so soft - set your channels up with a bit of forethought and this isn't an issue at all.
yeah, you've got a point.
Counting clicks is a useful quality control technique. Think of common scenarios and see how many clicks they take. E.g., common scenario #1: It's bedtime, and I want to turn on the radio and set Night Mode. Later, turn off radio.
1) Top button
2) Music
3) Press My streams
4) Go to
5) Scroll arrow one or two or more times
6) Press station/stream of choice
7) Play button
8) Done
9) Done
10) Night button
Ten clicks ... that's a lot. And it doesn't count any volume adjustments.
Now to turn off radio and leave in Night mode:
1) Click screen. Oops, that goes to Widgets. Rats. Boy that light is bright.
2) Top button
3) Music
4) Stop
5) Done
6) Night
Hmmm ... I'm awake now.
Should have gone into Dim light mode first. So the next night ...
1) Top button
2) Settings
3) Brightness
4) Low brightness
5) Done
6) Done
7) Music
8) Press My streams
9) Go to
10) Scroll arrow one or two or more times
11) Press station/stream of choice
12) Play button
13) Done
14) Done
15) Night button
Whew.
It's worth noting that those procedures can be automated through use of alarms.
Not everything can simply be the result of hitting the top button. At most, we can show maybe a dozen useable buttons on the screen, assuming we don't want to show anything else such as status, etc.
Given all of the functionality in the chumby, it's simply *not possible* to make everything just one or two clicks away. We could have gone with a wizard approach for everything (something we *did* do with network configuration), but then you can't explore the options without backing out entirely.
We went with a classic dialog tree, since that's what people are most familiar with. That means hitting a lot of "done" buttons, but at least it's predictable where you end up. One thing we're really *not* interested in is making a "morse code" UI based on the top button.
As mentioned elsewhere, there's absolutely no consensus among users about what's most important and should have minimal clicks.
Duane -- Of course you're right. (I've designed user interfaces before myself and know that you can't possibly optimize for all scenarios and users.) What I had in mind was a process for assessing user-friendliness -- one you guys may well follow all the time, in which case, just ignore me! I wasn't actually asking for something different in regard to any particular function or task like turn-on-radio-etc. Just using as an example something that I know I'll be wanting to do frequently. Others could well do the same with what they'll want to do frequently and no doubt come up with a totally different set (and number) of clicks. It's just a useful exercise for interface designers to imagine several common scenarios and see how they turn out.
And having yielded to the temptation to point out something not entirely positive, let me add this: I LOVE the Dave Letterman monolog widget! And I very much appreciate your (Duane's) astonishingly helpful and attentive replies to the zillion-odd posts that pop up every day on a zillion topics. Thanks for working so hard at it (and on the Chumby, of course).
I never found this to be a problem. I do this all the time in the morning. If I want to go directly to the weather widget (or woot or whatever else I check in the morning), it never takes more than a few short seconds to get to what I want.
I'm puzzled as to how the author thinks it's a slow process.
It is if you have a lot of Widgets running like I do.
Couldn't there be an option added to the control channel that says "Play Radio" and it will at least automatically play the last station you listened to? That would appear to be a significant benefit. Maybe there could even be a few station "presets" on the control panel. Thoughts?
I also agree that the volume adjustment is a bit of a pain, I'd at least add a volume control to the control panel.
derspiess wrote:I never found this to be a problem. I do this all the time in the morning. If I want to go directly to the weather widget (or woot or whatever else I check in the morning), it never takes more than a few short seconds to get to what I want.
I'm puzzled as to how the author thinks it's a slow process.
It is if you have a lot of Widgets running like I do.
But that's exactly why I keep my "Morning" channel lean & mean. I started out with a lot of "fluff" on it, but after some trial & error, I pared it down to 14 widgets, about half of which are clocks (alternating between the other widgets) & the other half news (x3), weather (x2), woot and calendar.
Works for me, anyway.
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