Re: [LAU] State of the art GUI

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 7:10 AM, <fons@email-addr-hidden> wrote:
> I'd be interested to know what, in your opinion, makes a GUI 'state
> of the art' as opposed 'late 90s'. In other words, a list of features,
> properties etc. as opposed to just an example to look at.
>
> P.S. I'm not trolling. I really want to know.
>
> Ciao,
>

I think the biggest thing is finding a balance between form and
functionality. Often times, the form aspect gets left behind slightly
in open source software, either due to lack of time, or lack of
talent(Meaning programmers aren't always graphic designers which is
perfectly fine). In some cases functionality is taken to an extreme
at the expense of form, rather than finding a balance between them. I
personally think Ardour suffers some from this on occasion for
example, but I don't think that is much of a secret either. I am also
perfectly fine to be disagreed with on this topic as well:)

What do I mean by form? I mean not just doing basic straight
primitive shapes because they are the easiest to program, often times
subtle changes make things much more attractive to look at, but they
are also the most difficult to do in a way that is subtle enough not
to draw attention to itself. If overdone functionality itself can
suffer.

I am going to pick on Thorsten here slightly as I think this is his
work, but I do want to state up front I have the uptmost respect for
him and his work.

To give an example I am fairly familiar with, take Ardour's fader
strips. Possibly the most commonly requested thing to be upgraded in
Ardour's appearance, it is unlikely to happen because the current
design is exceedingly functional. The design goals included making it
visually obvious that the entire fader could be clicked on to initiate
the drag, instead of just the graphical representation of the fader
knob that is so common(In Mixbus for example). My question on this
however would be, is the balance of form and functionality maintained
in this design. How much of a difference does that functional design
provide to most users, vs how much of a difference does it make to
have something that many people consider not very 'flashy' looking,
which there is two parts of the latter half of that. The first part
is how many users are just turned away from the get go, assuming that
if time wasn't spent to make the interface look nice, then it is
indicative that the software itself doesn't work nice. Sad to say
this is factor for many people, they choose audio software based on
the appearance, that topic is left to another thread, but it is a
given. The second half of this is, once it is established that you
can click anywhere on the fader, how much of a detractor is it to be
working starting at something that is 'less than shiny' for hours on
end. For many people, myself included, it can make the work slightly
more enjoyable if we enjoy what we are looking at as well as what we
are listening to. I mean we are talking about something that while it
is visual and not audible, and we should be concerned with the audible
side of things primarily, we do have to stare at the same screen for
hours on end and even though it doesn't affect the audio coming out,
it does affect our personality/morale/working attitude and might very
well lead to getting exhausted a bit easier.

Obviously all of this is slightly moot, and is part of why I used the
wording I did, because the old addage goes, "Beauty is in the eye of
the beholder." What I think looks beautiful can be very different
from what Paul does, or anyone else for that matter. There is no one
single thing that will always be beautiful to everyone, but I think
there can be some things that increase visual attractiveness to most
people.

Anyways random rambling over, does that provide a bit of clarity at
all to this? Or just muddy the already opaque waters?

     Seablade
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Received on Sat Jan 29 00:15:01 2011