I get it's not the same thing but I wish iOS had lower volume settings. As it is, if 100% is max volume then the difference between 0 and unit above 0 on iPhones is about 30% volume. Like, in the middle of the night when everything is quiet, if I was the set it on the lowest setting and make some game sounds I could hear it 2 rooms away with doors open. But, Apple decided you don't need to set it below 30%. Maybe they're trying to force you to buy Airpods
show comments
maest
This "article" just rehashes the top submissions from the reddit thread and then adds some surface level musings about UX.
It also blasts you with a full screen subscribe popup, ostensibly in case you want to see more rehashed content.
show comments
sillywalk
I'd add the volume control for Quicktime 4. A dial that you had to use a mouse to use.
One of the worst volume controls I have run across is when the UI tries to simulate a physical knob. More often than not I see this on VST Plugins and I have yet to find one that I actually like - they are all equally terrible.
They appear to fall into 3 buckets:
1) Worst: Direction of the cursor has move in a circular pattern as if dragging a physical knob with a cursor.
2) Annoying, but least common: You have to move the cursor horizontally to move the knob
3) Most common, but still annoying: You have to move the cursor vertically to move the knob.
show comments
wishfish
I have a mechanical keyboard with a metal roller for controlling volume. On my Mac, it works haphazardly. Rapidly rolling it downwards should mute almost immediately. But around 30-40% of the time, it'll just set it to a low volume instead. At least I work from home so this isn't an annoyance to anyone but myself. But it is annoying.
Oh well. From the UI's shown, I kinda like the 0-100 radio buttons. Yes, it's incredibly ugly. But I like the immediate precision of it.
sph
Beautiful, forgot about this one. The precursor to some of neal.fun's creations.
It seems like that account has quite a few more too
show comments
terribleperson
How about one where the first click sets your volume to max, and then pops up a dialogue to subscribe to a newsletter or sign up for an account? I've never seen such an atrocity, but I could see one plausibly being developed.
show comments
afcool83
I still contend that the worst volume control UX is asking your teenager to turn it down…
semolino
How about the most depraved volume control design of all: the actual reddit web video player (at least the embedded player on old.reddit)?
The slider is hidden by default. Hovering the volume icon makes the slider appear. There is margin between the icon and slider, though, so you have to quickly "zip" your mouse across this gap/chasm before the slider disappears. If you make it over to the slider in time, your hover then preserves its visibility.
I know for sure the devs at Condé ain't dogfoodin' on that interface anymore!
show comments
harvey9
I liked the one where you make a noise at the level you want to set the volume.
show comments
zelphirkalt
When I read the heading, I thought: "This must surely be about Windows volume control." But I didn't take into account, that this is a UX design website, so it mostly deals with UX and not with what happens after setting a specific numeric value for the volume.
neya
I like how towards the end they added the vanilla Apple mission control UI in there - which doesn't have any volume control at all just to prove their point. That really caught me off-guard and was funny af.
show comments
Sohcahtoa82
> Should is interesting because of its subjectiveness. It’s a question that only makes sense to be asked in first person. And you have to know about much more than just design to be able to answer it — you have to understand about business, technology, culture, people. Answering the should question is a skill you only get after many, many years answering questions alike.
I wish more front-end designers would consider "should" more often.
"Oh, we can make the scrollbars in our web page auto-hide so PC users get the same experience as Mac users"
But should you?
No. Because one of the reasons I use a PC is because auto-hiding scrollbars on a desktop/laptop is a bug, not a feature, and I disabled that bug while I had a Mac because it's annoying.
"Oh, we can implement smooth scrolling in JavaScript!"
But should you?
No. Because browsers already do it. And your implementation will fail on at least one browser and cause scrolling to just be fucked up. If a user has disabled smooth scrolling, it's probably for a reason. Don't force it back on.
"We can create our own implementation of a drop-down box"
But should you?
No. You're reducing accessibility for literally zero gain. I hate when I'm entering my address, tabbing through the fields, reach the State, and pressing O then R doesn't bring me to "Oregon" or "OR", and instead brings me to Rhode Island. Side note: The order of entering an address is street address, city, state, zip code. If your form order is any different, you're a madman.
show comments
tiltowait
As I scrolled down, one of the animations started and brought up a subscription modal. "Okay, that one would be enraging," I thought, delighted, as I waited for the animation to loop.
It didn't. It was the site's real subscription modal.
I feel like there's a lesson in there.
rixed
I thought that would be about alsamixer.
show comments
noisy_boy
I think the one with 100 checkboxes with each for a given volume gives direct access to the level of volume you want. Mad, but usable.
show comments
Dwedit
Is there a list of these that are actually in real shipped software and not created as a joke?
lend000
The one that started shaking more and more as the volume got louder sent me. Sometimes you have to give credit where it's due, even when the result is unusable.
lzhgusapp
macOS has its own share of UI quirks too. The volume slider is fine, but app management is surprisingly bad for a platform that prides itself on UX. There's still no native way to quit all apps at once, and Activity Monitor feels stuck in 2005. Small UI tools that just get one thing right tend to stick around.
show comments
wiether
Too bad the article is from 2017 because it's missing a major one: Sonos iOS app.
RiskScore
I've seen this same thing like 100 times. I do not mind.
user3939382
The worst is the “AI transformation journey” volume UI. You talk to an agent to describe the character of the volume level you want. It loads a volume control “skill” and adjusts it.
Traubenfuchs
I feel like it‘s in bad taste to turn a reddit thread into a blog post with zero added value instead of just linking to the thread.
dev1ycan
I have my sennheiser bluetooth headphones connected to windows 11, for whatever reason, 90% of the time, I move the slider on Windows 11 and it ignores completely the sound on my headphones, just great working products. I have to use the physical buttons on my headphones like a caveman
aa-jv
I once worked for a mainstream headphone manufacturer who added a volume control to a product that was so widely despised that a special firmware release had to be done to disable it completely, or else the returns bin would overflow almost overnight ..
So this had me chuckling so hard, having worked professionally in the pro audio world for decades - I can say that some of these 'solutions' would actually be accepted in certain market segments .. I especially love the designs which use a built-in accelerometer.
It seems the good ol' knob is not going anywhere any time soon.
jibal
I just want to be able to get to 11.
show comments
nubg
I don't get the iOS one?
c4pt0r
i know they will have alsamixer in this list.
himata4113
Have seen this every single time, the iPhone one is my favorite. If you know, you know.
I get it's not the same thing but I wish iOS had lower volume settings. As it is, if 100% is max volume then the difference between 0 and unit above 0 on iPhones is about 30% volume. Like, in the middle of the night when everything is quiet, if I was the set it on the lowest setting and make some game sounds I could hear it 2 rooms away with doors open. But, Apple decided you don't need to set it below 30%. Maybe they're trying to force you to buy Airpods
This "article" just rehashes the top submissions from the reddit thread and then adds some surface level musings about UX.
It also blasts you with a full screen subscribe popup, ostensibly in case you want to see more rehashed content.
I'd add the volume control for Quicktime 4. A dial that you had to use a mouse to use.
http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtime.htm
EDIT:
previously
763 points by yankcrime on July 13, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 477 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27819384
One of the worst volume controls I have run across is when the UI tries to simulate a physical knob. More often than not I see this on VST Plugins and I have yet to find one that I actually like - they are all equally terrible.
They appear to fall into 3 buckets:
1) Worst: Direction of the cursor has move in a circular pattern as if dragging a physical knob with a cursor.
2) Annoying, but least common: You have to move the cursor horizontally to move the knob
3) Most common, but still annoying: You have to move the cursor vertically to move the knob.
I have a mechanical keyboard with a metal roller for controlling volume. On my Mac, it works haphazardly. Rapidly rolling it downwards should mute almost immediately. But around 30-40% of the time, it'll just set it to a low volume instead. At least I work from home so this isn't an annoyance to anyone but myself. But it is annoying.
Oh well. From the UI's shown, I kinda like the 0-100 radio buttons. Yes, it's incredibly ugly. But I like the immediate precision of it.
Beautiful, forgot about this one. The precursor to some of neal.fun's creations.
- https://neal.fun/not-a-robot/
- https://neal.fun/password-game/
Every now and then I get these hilarious volume control videos on TikTok. They show the most horrible ways for doing volume control
One example (you need to play tic tac toe to set the volume) https://www.tiktok.com/@vivancodes/video/7612511893340671240
It seems like that account has quite a few more too
How about one where the first click sets your volume to max, and then pops up a dialogue to subscribe to a newsletter or sign up for an account? I've never seen such an atrocity, but I could see one plausibly being developed.
I still contend that the worst volume control UX is asking your teenager to turn it down…
How about the most depraved volume control design of all: the actual reddit web video player (at least the embedded player on old.reddit)?
The slider is hidden by default. Hovering the volume icon makes the slider appear. There is margin between the icon and slider, though, so you have to quickly "zip" your mouse across this gap/chasm before the slider disappears. If you make it over to the slider in time, your hover then preserves its visibility.
I know for sure the devs at Condé ain't dogfoodin' on that interface anymore!
I liked the one where you make a noise at the level you want to set the volume.
When I read the heading, I thought: "This must surely be about Windows volume control." But I didn't take into account, that this is a UX design website, so it mostly deals with UX and not with what happens after setting a specific numeric value for the volume.
I like how towards the end they added the vanilla Apple mission control UI in there - which doesn't have any volume control at all just to prove their point. That really caught me off-guard and was funny af.
> Should is interesting because of its subjectiveness. It’s a question that only makes sense to be asked in first person. And you have to know about much more than just design to be able to answer it — you have to understand about business, technology, culture, people. Answering the should question is a skill you only get after many, many years answering questions alike.
I wish more front-end designers would consider "should" more often.
"Oh, we can make the scrollbars in our web page auto-hide so PC users get the same experience as Mac users"
But should you?
No. Because one of the reasons I use a PC is because auto-hiding scrollbars on a desktop/laptop is a bug, not a feature, and I disabled that bug while I had a Mac because it's annoying.
"Oh, we can implement smooth scrolling in JavaScript!"
But should you?
No. Because browsers already do it. And your implementation will fail on at least one browser and cause scrolling to just be fucked up. If a user has disabled smooth scrolling, it's probably for a reason. Don't force it back on.
"We can create our own implementation of a drop-down box"
But should you?
No. You're reducing accessibility for literally zero gain. I hate when I'm entering my address, tabbing through the fields, reach the State, and pressing O then R doesn't bring me to "Oregon" or "OR", and instead brings me to Rhode Island. Side note: The order of entering an address is street address, city, state, zip code. If your form order is any different, you're a madman.
As I scrolled down, one of the animations started and brought up a subscription modal. "Okay, that one would be enraging," I thought, delighted, as I waited for the animation to loop.
It didn't. It was the site's real subscription modal.
I feel like there's a lesson in there.
I thought that would be about alsamixer.
I think the one with 100 checkboxes with each for a given volume gives direct access to the level of volume you want. Mad, but usable.
Is there a list of these that are actually in real shipped software and not created as a joke?
The one that started shaking more and more as the volume got louder sent me. Sometimes you have to give credit where it's due, even when the result is unusable.
macOS has its own share of UI quirks too. The volume slider is fine, but app management is surprisingly bad for a platform that prides itself on UX. There's still no native way to quit all apps at once, and Activity Monitor feels stuck in 2005. Small UI tools that just get one thing right tend to stick around.
Too bad the article is from 2017 because it's missing a major one: Sonos iOS app.
I've seen this same thing like 100 times. I do not mind.
The worst is the “AI transformation journey” volume UI. You talk to an agent to describe the character of the volume level you want. It loads a volume control “skill” and adjusts it.
I feel like it‘s in bad taste to turn a reddit thread into a blog post with zero added value instead of just linking to the thread.
I have my sennheiser bluetooth headphones connected to windows 11, for whatever reason, 90% of the time, I move the slider on Windows 11 and it ignores completely the sound on my headphones, just great working products. I have to use the physical buttons on my headphones like a caveman
I once worked for a mainstream headphone manufacturer who added a volume control to a product that was so widely despised that a special firmware release had to be done to disable it completely, or else the returns bin would overflow almost overnight ..
So this had me chuckling so hard, having worked professionally in the pro audio world for decades - I can say that some of these 'solutions' would actually be accepted in certain market segments .. I especially love the designs which use a built-in accelerometer.
It seems the good ol' knob is not going anywhere any time soon.
I just want to be able to get to 11.
I don't get the iOS one?
i know they will have alsamixer in this list.
Have seen this every single time, the iPhone one is my favorite. If you know, you know.