Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Fri, October 3, 2014 7:22 am, Len Ovens wrote: snip SHould Linux target those who only see a comodity? WHo are only looking to have what their idol uses? Or who want the cheapest one that works? The stuff already out there will be what gets bought. Developing HW with Linux is like developing with any other OS, it requires innovation and lots of support. The linux HW has to have what nothing else does and the something has to be seen as needed. Lets see how the mod duo does. I have asked people who already have similar gear about the mod boxes and while they are interested in the platform they are put off by the price. Until they reach the economies of scale to be price competitive there will be a small market. Especially if trying to sell to the existing Linux peeps who are generally pretty cheap when it comes to actually parting with their own personal cash. Several people have tried to tap the market with expensive hardware and had pretty dismal results. However if we look at the success of the low end DIY market ex arduino, rasp pi, rockchip, allwinner that is a pretty good success story. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Fri, 2014-10-03 at 17:09 +1000, Patrick Shirkey wrote: On Fri, October 3, 2014 7:22 am, Len Ovens wrote: snip SHould Linux target those who only see a comodity? WHo are only looking to have what their idol uses? Or who want the cheapest one that works? The stuff already out there will be what gets bought. Developing HW with Linux is like developing with any other OS, it requires innovation and lots of support. The linux HW has to have what nothing else does and the something has to be seen as needed. Lets see how the mod duo does. I have asked people who already have similar gear about the mod boxes and while they are interested in the platform they are put off by the price. Until they reach the economies of scale to be price competitive there will be a small market. Especially if trying to sell to the existing Linux peeps who are generally pretty cheap when it comes to actually parting with their own personal cash. Several people have tried to tap the market with expensive hardware and had pretty dismal results. However if we look at the success of the low end DIY market ex arduino, rasp pi, rockchip, allwinner that is a pretty good success story. Whats wrong with the price? Assumed the hardware should be ok and there would be a sane selection of high quality effects needed by musicians (instead of hundreds of music pedals [1]), it isn't expensive. [1] An irritating slogan, I suspect it would be hard just to name 50 effect pedals, let alone hundreds. ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Fri, 3 Oct 2014, Patrick Shirkey wrote: I have asked people who already have similar gear about the mod boxes and while they are interested in the platform they are put off by the price. compare to this for example: http://www.zoom.co.jp/products/ms-100bt $160, but you have to buy new effects... after the first 100 already there. Until they reach the economies of scale to be price competitive there will be a small market. Especially if trying to sell to the existing Linux peeps who are generally pretty cheap when it comes to actually parting with their own personal cash. Several people have tried to tap the market I did notice they do not seem to be looking at the Linux users market, the promo shows the user with an apple product for browsing. The form is enough different than the norm that players will recognize it on the stage if they see someone else using it. It is very hard for me think like the group of people this is/should be aimed at, because I am one of those cheap Linux guys. Though of all the kickstarter categories I am most attracted to the gift a developer one... even for a gift size bigger than the next two categories. Free and open seem to have almost no meaning/value to those who do not already know what that means and value it. Cheap and effective or over priced and branded are what seems to be attractive to people. I guess what I am trying to say, is that spreading Linux and it's tools is not going to be simply adding a nicer/easy UI. Those things will not hurt and besides will help those already using the SW. -- Len Ovens www.ovenwerks.net ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Fri, 2014-10-03 at 17:59 -0700, Len Ovens wrote: http://www.zoom.co.jp/products/ms-100bt Wow! Perhaps shopping new effects isn't that important for many musicians: http://www.thomann.de/gb/zoom_multi_stomp_ms50g.htm An advantage of the MOD Duo clearly is, that it's possible to connect Expression Pedals and a footswitch extensor. OTOH for the low price of the Zoom effects it's possible to buy several of those devices, this would have the advantage, that if one device should fail on stage, the musician wouldn't be completely lost. The Advantage of the Zooms likely is the compact design, simply replace one of your Boss boxes in the case with one of the Zoom effects. Zoom is an established known company, if weak points, such as the display should fail within the period of warranty, you can assume that the company still will exists. You can't assume this for new companies. I suspect that neither all available Linux effects, nor all the Zoom effects will satisfy musicians, compared to some classic stomp box effects, but both, a Linux and a Zoom likely could replace some effects. Btw. I guess I'll order a MS-50G, resp. take a look if there are other similar products available in this price range. Assumed I should dislike it at a time when it isn't possible to send it back to the dealer, it likely would be possible to sell it for half of the price, such a drop is passable. Resume: For us it's nice to get a device that is available to use open source. Is this from interest for a majority of musicians? If not, than the MOD duo never would become able to compete for the cost. However, if the MOD duo should really provide something special, that isn't provided by other products, the price still would be ok. [snip] Open-source seems like a somewhat dubious format for pedals, since many cheap digital multi-effects processors already exist and are generally shunned by people who prefer analog circuitry. - http://blog.pedalfinder.com/2014/09/443/ There are simply analog devices enjoying cult status for good reasons, but some of the new digital devices are accepted too, they are not shunned per se. ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Thu, October 2, 2014 7:00 pm, Will Godfrey wrote: On Wed, 1 Oct 2014 21:40:10 -0700 (PDT) Len Ovens l...@ovenwerks.net wrote: On Wed, 1 Oct 2014, Paul Davis wrote: Here's an interesting counterpoint or follow up point or whatever. I've queued it to start at the right time, listen till about 31:00 (or longer if you want). The key point I wanted to highlight was Gerhard's point about saying No to user requests. But, being Gerhard, he has other interesting points to make as well. src=//www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x26axz5?start=1530 allowfullscreen/iframebr An interesting chat. In his case the reasons for saying no to user requests might be different, though not by much. I also realize maybe I am taking the original question off of what it was asking. The original talk was about something that is perhaps not understandable in the context of creation rather consuming. Many of the newer DEs are frustrating for developers (not just SW development), but developers even though there are many, are a very small percentage of computer users. Most are consumers, games and browsing are almost all that happens. From that POV win8, unity, gnome3, OSx, Android, etc. all make sense. From a developers POV (POV meaning personal use), they don't. Someone who is creating music, video or graphics is a developer and their needs are not the same as the consumer. Once that difference is pushed out of the way and one looks at the user experience from a developer's POV the experience that is expected is different but it is still there. snip I found myself nodding all the way through this! Also, it seems that as time goes by a lot of people are using steadily more powerful equipment to actually do less! Whether this is what they want to do or whether it's what the interface *allows* them to do is a moot point. As someone who tries to get the most out of anything I use, I find most commercial software extremely frustrating in the way it strait-jackets users. I think this also blocks curiosity and maybe stops more youngsters joining the creative communities. I think this relates back to the topic as in who's experience should lead the design? If youngsters are people under the age of, say 25 then, most of them will be blocked from LAD by not having access to a Linux PC. The ones who do will mostly be doing academic study, scientific research or working for governments who have chosen Linux instead of the other options. It's increasingly unlikely they will have Linux Desktop PC's at home. Very few new people are taking the time to install Linux OS's on desktop PC's and the desktop market is in decline for the consumer portion across the board. The majority of the shift to Unix has been for Android, ChromeOS, OSX with firefoxOS and Tizen coming closer to fruition each day. The remaining professional portion of the market which I assume Harry is targeting for a sustainable income is well and truly in the OSX camp. It's going to be hard to pull them away from OSX to this OS. Even with really slick interfaces they generally have a different mindset that defines their reasoning. As I was told once. it's not about how much money they can save, but how much money they can make... Linux has seen wide adoption in the embedded audio hardware market but many of the companies that make audio hardware running on Linux systems do not participate directly here. So in terms of usability and this discussion the majority of LAD professionally focused developers are targeting the scientific/academic markets and embedded hardware markets. In that case usability takes second place to raw power and functionality. There is also the web market but I am in a clear minority on the importance of that round here. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On 2 October 2014 10:28, Patrick Shirkey pshir...@boosthardware.com wrote: the desktop market is in decline for the consumer portion across the board. Assuming by desktop you mean traditional PC market, various news stories I've read over the last few months would suggest that's not declining for the first time in years, and potentially even seeing some growth. Best wishes, Neil -- Neil C Smith Artist : Technologist : Adviser http://neilcsmith.net Praxis LIVE - open-source intermedia development - www.praxislive.org Digital Prisoners - interactive spaces and projections - www.digitalprisoners.co.uk ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Thu, October 2, 2014 7:44 pm, Neil C Smith wrote: On 2 October 2014 10:28, Patrick Shirkey pshir...@boosthardware.com wrote: the desktop market is in decline for the consumer portion across the board. Assuming by desktop you mean traditional PC market, various news stories I've read over the last few months would suggest that's not declining for the first time in years, and potentially even seeing some growth. I've seen those reports too. They are optimistic but potential growth is not the same thing as actually growing. It's more likely to be corporate buyers replacing existing stock. The current situation is the consumer desktop PC market when it comes to audio/multimedia has been decimated by mobile. The Linux Audio Market is currently doing best in embedded hardware. If we want to consider Android as a Linux OS then Linux Audio is doing the best that it has been for years with many companies that have nothing to do with LAD making a business out of their Android applications. The corporate market is still there as a potential battle ground and will probably never go away but getting Linux Audio into the corporate market is a very tough slog. Even at companies where they have massive investments in Linux infrastructure and embedded hardware they are still using OSX for multimedia production and M$ for general purpose administration. It's almost impossible to convince an established Digital Media department that Linux is an appropriate platform for their team members. Firstly there is a massive lack of expertise and training. For example, It is very rare to see a job ad for a multimedia position that uses open source technology. The Blender community is making some headway in the training aspect of the problem but it is slow going. Nearly every professional multimedia person working in corporate space uses those other tools and platforms without question. To change that will require getting into the heads of corporate managers so they make decisions based on a different set of goals. It's a tough sell. It will also require students to choose Open Source over proprietary and that is also a hard nut to crack because the proprietary companies offer incentives to the HoD's that open source can't match. Will Linux Desktop professional or consumer multimedia ever become a growth market? I am not convinced that putting additional effort into usability is the key to cracking it. IMO there are other issues that need to be resolved first. Getting a couple more big names in on the game will be useful too. I recall Native-Instruments were on the fence a couple of years back. They needed more convincing at the time. Maybe they have an update about their assessment of the current market? Has anyone here actually tried selling *any* kind of app on the Ubuntu App Store? Does anyone have actual data about the amount of people out there who use LAD tools? From my perspective the ad hits on LAU Guide are pretty much static after the past 4 years I am not seeing significant growth or decline month on month. One could spin it that we have seen overall growth because it is unlikely that a lot of the same people would return to the LAU-Guide on a regular basis. That suggests that there is a reasonable sized potentially untapped market out there of at least 100k. Who are these mysterious people and will they spend any money? If I had tracking tags on the site I might be able to provide more details but I don't. Until someone nails a mega successful app/model with Linux the other companies waiting in the wings will continue to dip their toes. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On 2 October 2014 11:48, Patrick Shirkey pshir...@boosthardware.com wrote: I've seen those reports too. They are optimistic but potential growth is not the same thing as actually growing. It's more likely to be corporate buyers replacing existing stock. eg. http://www.warc.com/LatestNews/News/PC_sales_rebound_in_Western_Europe.news?ID=32866 Would suggest you're correct in being *mostly* about corporate buyers, but not entirely - still +2% in consumer sales, which isn't declining! Is that potential growth or actual though? Still, 88.2% of statistics are made up on the spot :-) Will Linux Desktop professional or consumer multimedia ever become a growth market? I'm intrigued to see what effect developments in the gaming arena may have on consumer Linux usage over the next couple of years, or on general commercial attitudes in other sectors. Neil -- Neil C Smith Artist : Technologist : Adviser http://neilcsmith.net Praxis LIVE - open-source intermedia development - www.praxislive.org Digital Prisoners - interactive spaces and projections - www.digitalprisoners.co.uk ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Thu, October 2, 2014 9:14 pm, Neil C Smith wrote: On 2 October 2014 11:48, Patrick Shirkey pshir...@boosthardware.com wrote: I've seen those reports too. They are optimistic but potential growth is not the same thing as actually growing. It's more likely to be corporate buyers replacing existing stock. eg. http://www.warc.com/LatestNews/News/PC_sales_rebound_in_Western_Europe.news?ID=32866 Would suggest you're correct in being *mostly* about corporate buyers, but not entirely - still +2% in consumer sales, which isn't declining! Is that potential growth or actual though? Still, 88.2% of statistics are made up on the spot :-) Will Linux Desktop professional or consumer multimedia ever become a growth market? I'm intrigued to see what effect developments in the gaming arena may have on consumer Linux usage over the next couple of years, or on general commercial attitudes in other sectors. If SteamOS becomes a fully fledged distribution on the scale of Ubuntu/Fedora then it might have an affect on adoption rates for LAD software with the young crowd. NVidia is putting a lot of effort into expanding the use of GPU's with CUDA/OpenCL API's so that might also have a positive affect on adoption but only if we build the tools to take advantage of the hardware. FFMPEG developers are doing a great job of keeping things progressing on that front. But LAD'ers could do more to build out tools that leverage GPU's. We could get some more wind in our sails if some well known companies/artists/producers actively promoted their support for Linux OS and encouraged adoption. That has to be a two way street though. For example famous artists usually give endorsements for something in return. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Thu, 2014-10-02 at 10:24 +0100, gordon...@gjcp.net wrote: Ever wonder why your DX21 has only got eight algorithms by which the operators may be combined? *That's* why. That's a reasoning just from your point of view, but not the real reasoning. Btw. the DX21 provides 4 operators. But the flagship is the DX7, with 6 operators and 32 algorithms, usually feedback is given to 1 operator only, but 2 algorithms provide a grouped feedback and there are various ways how operators modulate other operators. The reason why it's different for the DX21 are cost concerns. Programming the DX7 for most users was to complicated, because there isn't a usable user interface, just a very small display and a few switches, quasi the Unity of synthesizer user interfaces. A modular DX7 or better DX2014 with cables and potentiometers and programming it would become enjoyable, but the synth would become much too expensive. Analogies or comparisons don't work. There are reasons why completely contrary designs could be as good as the other. There isn't a theory of everything for functionality of design. There are no knobs on a piano, but using a piano for me would be much more complicated, because a normal piano can't be connected to a sequencer, so playing it for a guitarist like me is hard to do. Why doesn't a piano provide a neck as a guitar does? I now could make some reasoning from a guitarist's point of view and ignore the fact that a piano and a guitar are just different tools for musicians. Regards, Ralf ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Thu, 2 Oct 2014, gordon...@gjcp.net wrote: I found Unity to be far, far quicker and easier to get around than anything that has gone before. It took a bit of adjustment after using Gnome 2, but I can't see me ever going back. Good, I have tried it a number of times (every release I install and try it) and for me it always ends up being more keystrokes to do anything more than use the browser. I know someone who uses the new gnome shell as well for music and loves it. However, I have heard more complaints about both of them than praise. Both require an up to date reasonably powerful machine to run. (My P4 box will not even start gnome screen and unity barely moves, my 3 year old netbook doesn't like either of them either) As such, even something that runs these ok may not be able to do the same lowlatency audio that other DEs can do on the same machine. In trying to help people do so I have seen more people switch than not. Now obviously I won't have tried to help those for whom unity has just worked so my POV is bound to be one sided. As someone who tries to get the most out of anything I use, I find most commercial software extremely frustrating in the way it strait-jackets users. I think this also blocks curiosity and maybe stops more youngsters joining the creative communities. But that starts to sound like the user arguments that put me off developing Linux audio software in the first place. There seems to be a mindset of software shouldn't waste cycles looking nice and being easy to use which suggests that things ought to look shite and be difficult to use with every conceivable option exposed to the user, because it gives them more flexibility. There does need to be a balance. However, part of the problem is user mindset, and here I am talking linux hobby mindset. Many people who use linux expect to get away with a lesser machine. The same person will spend twice what their computer is worth for an audio IF. Really, if someone is serious about music, they need to have reasonable gear. But they shouldn't have to have a server class box just so the display can look pretty either. If we were truely worried about cpu cycles we would all be using NAMA as our DAW with no X running. One of the things I heard from one of the videos mentioned was that the UI can influence the music that comes out of it. Limitations in the UI can shape the way the music is made. So here is another place there needs to be balance. I don't know how this relates, but It may be interesting to note that I have tried LMMS and Bitwig both of which are supposed to be very easy to use, but I found them hard to get noise out of at all. Yet I was able to use Ardour and have it act as expected from my first use. So obviously my head does not work the same as the average musician... and as such maybe I should stay as far away from developing anything as I can. I learned the same lesson myself after coming at it the hard way when I wrote an eight-operator FM softsynth where any operator could be routed to any other operator (even itself) in a giant matrix of 64 controls. I think even the 32 setups on the DX7 were more than needed, yet there are people who have played with them for years who comment they are still learning new things on them. I do not know if two more operators who have helped, but having 6 still seems to be better than 4... though 4 with more than just sine wave in may be a different story. Yes, it was extremely powerful and versatile, but actually it turned out that this didn't make it useful. It needed to be *less* powerful and versatile to filter out all the useless combinations. Ever wonder why your DX21 has only got eight algorithms by which the operators may be combined? *That's* why. The dx21 only has 8 because it only has 4 operators. This is math related rather than usablity related. I suspect it had something to do with production cost as well. I have a 4 operator synth (even cheaper version than the 21) and I do not like the sound as much as the DX7 (I have one of those too). However the usability angle really shows well here. The DX7 was not at all easy to program and it showed, it was easy to recognize the DX7 in popular music becasue everyone just used the factory defaults... good thing they were reasonable defaults for the DX7 would have been dead as soon as it came out. Having more operator controls may have helped, but the cost would have been a lot more too (the DX1 for example). The manufacturers have learned from this all and most new synths just have presets that eveyone uses. No one creates new sounds on them but rather buys them for the sounds that they come with. In the end it has led to less experimental music, but there are a lot of other factors that pointed that way anyway. The big labels are not interested in music at all, just profit. They hire the same producers who use the same sounds that have worked
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
Fons wrote: The many times I've had to set a delay time the most convenient unit could have been samples, millisecs or meters (at the speed of sound), depending on the context Sure, there are uses (particularly your fields of WFS, Ambisonics, and related) where such uses are prevailent. Aka, context. Musicians are very rarely in a context when ms, meters or samples is of any relevance to what they are trying to achieve. I'm not trying to belittle either use case here: but highlighting that there are different use cases, and that using tools designed with units like speed-of-sound-in-air and meters-of-delay are not usable for musicians. Similarly, I think you'll agree that trying do correctly compensate for the non-ideal location of a specific speaker using BPM and 1/4 notes delay time isn't a workflow you'd care for. Patrick Shirley wrote: A way to enhance usability across the board might be to have an app of the week where everyone in the Linux Audio community is encouraged to run it and provide any feedback I think this is a brilliant idea, and should be done: @Patrick, if you wish to take the initiative to make this happen, I leave it to you. If you're not interested in doing it yourself, I would like to pick up such an incentive. I'd could only start in a few weeks, and would take a slightly more relaxed approach app of the month perhaps, and use the projects bug-tracker for feedback: sending lots of feedback-traffic trough LAU wouldn't seem appropriate to me. Paul Davis wrote: Link to video Interesting to see that larger companies and musicians also battle the same issue, that there isn't any clear consensus on obviously it should be done this way. Thanks for linking, I hope to watch the whole clip another time. Will Godfrey wrote: I think this relates back to the topic as in who's experience should lead the design? Very good point: and something I'd like to address: If I (as OpenAV) recieved more feedback, I'd have a better idea of what people wanted. Voicing concerns is hugely important here: hit me with emails / github-issues if there are specific things you'd like to see change! General commentary: I guess that makes it clearer to me, design with experience in mind, not features. This is something I think I (as OpenAV) may not have been doing enough while developing Luppp, and hence am currently re-organizing the priorities of a live-performance / looping workflow. Cheers, -Harry ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 30.09.2014 15:58, Harry van Haaren wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpagev=ldhHkVjLe7A#t=1625 To bring this discussion to a productive start, I'd like to concider the tools we have available as the linux-audio community: they certainly have features, and empower the user to own thier tools, and the data used with those tools. Should we improve experience for users? Should we design experience driven open software? Should we forward the UX of Linux Audio to the age of experiences? What do users know, that developers might not? What is it that needs to change? Are there even issues here? If so, how do we (the community as a whole) try to solve this? I hope this is a productive and inclusive discussion, and politely request remaining on topic ;) To a fruitful discussion, -Harry I was disagreeing with everything he said from the get go (or rather from the time you linked to). I'm an enthusiast and I don't need shiny tools and integration. I need well designed (software design, separation of concern, multiple ways of interfacing, language bindings, etc.) building blocks to tinker and experiment with. The one thing that struck a chord though were his last remarks and he surely wasn't the first to mention those points :) If the open, libre, software environment doesn't appeal to the non-enthusiast masses, they are led to the altar of getting their liberties butchered, as is apparent with modern OSs like OS X and windows, iOS and android and the popular applications on those platforms. I'll watch the rest of the talk later, when I'm not busy with getting food on my table creating non open software on the linux platform ;) I wonder how he wants to solve problem of funding. Polish and Integration is a monumental task eating tons of resources. Ain't no enthusiast got time for that (unless they find a way of financing).. Regards, Flo -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1 Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJUK8UsAAoJEA5f4Coltk8ZlFYH/0KJONGEho+84ZHu7PUrxwJF R6nK09AlyRlR2Hd/Dq7UP6Mqdr9+sFX6bbZCiQ6QfNtqti+qqdMmrQkfzmOGsgJ/ jBO4M3BU2nS23rQgjSnN/V2O+xejSXZSPTdqf9gepMIqnuEfqxmsqQsg/zvnBzOj UuSBT+m8zvnrWuUoI3fH2rYFzJBEie70ap4/fzkk+8up4EJ3jjn8Yur087QrTDK+ cq6Jkmzd8waXKXP/g93tWoAW9CDK5f1xx8WIfumpSQdZ6qbj9uaDnAHfW6pMIdJJ Ma+jLrmObx7y+V0nEyEGCNl041Ekhogrrzn0nfBjlr4rmMOhSvccIvrcauK/BtA= =VYjt -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
Hi all, There's a lot of interesting points brought up: I've only just had the time to read them, and reply to the points that most speak to me (the individual) and me (as OpenAV). Charles Henry wrote: There does not currently exist a company that is credibly making a complete, whole-system design approach to problems such as audio recording and live sound processing. There are various companies working on this type of integration though: there are various HW/SW combo that works with a computer, and integrates very well: sure they're not selling the PC yet: but it won't be long I think. Actually they're probably working on developing that right now :D (example that I worked with http://www.presonus.com/products/StudioLive-16.0.2 ) Charles Henry also wrote: To change: incentive structure. There must be some kind of initiative (non-profit or other organization) that appeals to developers and meets the economic constraints of the world we live in, to be feasible. Agreed: with my OpenAV hat on, that's something that I'm thinking about and concidering how I can earn a living somehow by developing open music software. Fons wrote: there's one significant difference between the users who expect everything (including thinking) to be done for them, and those who are prepared to learn: the latter will say 'thank you'. Agreed, I also feel that doing the thinking for a user of a piece of software is not the right thing: I have no issue with a user having to spend time to learn to use a domain and tool. What I do want to note here, is that said user should not have to learn an unrelated-domain, in order to use the software in the target domain. In my opinion, the learning curve is too steep (or perhaps more accurately too board) for musicians starting to use linux-audio. Louigi Verona wrote: I will probably record a podcast lil later Cool, looking forward to your opinion as a user. Tom wrote: Looking at one of the slides.. i find it a strange idea that a CEO would do the (software, UX) design Indeed: and I don't agree with everything in the talk; this is a good example. Tom also wrote: Hiding behind the term professional to describe software, that is in fact just a cumbersome pile of crap (and thus professional) is another strategy i can observe It is easy to have bad/overly-complicated workflow in a piece of software, and call it professional to make up for it. That's pretty much exactly why I started this thread: thanks for making it obvious to me :) Paul Davis wrote: it isn't about being a professional or not In my opinion its about creating software that caters for a workflow, or use case if that's a term you prefer. This is about designing software for a particular use-case, and *then* focussing on the experience while using it. The talk mentions the age of experience, perhaps I interchange the word workflow and experience sometimes. A smooth workflow provides a good experience. And certain use-cases are catered for very well by certain programs *features*, but the *experience* or *workflow* of using it is not something that I feel is somewhat lacking. Flo wrote: I'm an enthusiast and I don't need shiny tools and integration. I need well designed (software design, separation of concern, multiple ways of interfacing, language bindings, etc.) building blocks to tinker and experiment with. And I understand that there is a need for software to cater for your use case, or preferred workflow too. That's the lower-left quadrant in the talk: Open Features-driven tools. Very powerful when in very capable hands. Its users who would prefer a smooth experience that do not have software available to them on linux audio right now. And its designing and building software in that domain that I'm interested in (both as me, and OpenAV). Cheers, -Harry -- http://openavproductions.com ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Wednesday 01 October 2014 01:04:52 hermann meyer did opine And Gene did reply: Am 30.09.2014 23:51, schrieb Paul Davis: it isn't about being a professional or not. You can be a professional woodworker or a weekend amateur and use (functionally speaking) the same tools. The pro might also have a CNC system too, but that doesn't change things in any particular way. professional tools for woodworkers are extreme expensive ( I know it, because I'm), it's unlikely that a weekend amateur is willing to spend the money for them. (as well a parable) I'm one of the weekenders I guess, although my weekends can be anytime since I retired a decade change back up the log of life. But to facilitate some precision in my woodworking for mortise tenon joinery, I long ago made up an alu bar that I can bolt to the front of the head casting of my cnc'd (using LinuxCNC of course) micromill to mount a cheap die grinder far enough forward and offset to the left, and some jigs to mount the frame sticks in a vice-like setup, wrote a bit of gcode and carved both the tenon on the end of the stick, and its matching mortise. My last such project, for the next door neighbor, was a set of benches with seat backs that double as storage for toys etc for all ages, only had 172 such joints in it. And no, not a pro, but just making the best use of the tools I have. My interests are best described as eclectic I guess. Keeps me out of the bars, is I believe the usual excuse. :) Point being, use the tool you are familiar with. Cheers, Gene Heskett -- There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene US V Castleman, SCOTUS, Mar 2014 is grounds for Impeaching SCOTUS ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On tal, 2014-09-30 at 10:56 -0400, Paul Davis wrote: On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 9:58 AM, Harry van Haaren harryhaa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Linux Audio Developers, TL;DR; Discussing experience driven design for linux audio. I'd like to discuss the age of experiences. Allow me 10 minutes of your time, to watch a video by Aral Balkan talk about development of technology, FLOSS, design, and the future. las HarryHaaren: interesting talk las HarryHaaren: i want to agree with him except for one major issue (for me) las HarryHaaren: i'm not interested in making consumer tools HarryHaaren las, I came across Aral's work recently, and its been very interesting for me anyway. las HarryHaaren: and if i'm not making consumer tools, then my model is not apple but tools for cabinetry HarryHaaren sure, valid point: I agree. las HarryHaaren: and everything he says would be total bullshit and totally inappropriate there HarryHaaren but I don't feel that's the case for the whole Linux-Audio eco-system las HarryHaaren: indeed las HarryHaaren: but basically, the bit that is missing is easily summarized: Live and plugins las HarryHaaren: these are where his experience driven stuff matters las HarryHaaren: and yes, i agree that it does matter HarryHaaren agreed: that happens to be just what i'm particularly interested in :D las HarryHaaren: he even uses the term tools las HarryHaaren: i think this is a serious abuse of the word, but he's not the one who started this las HarryHaaren: when my wife uses a computer, she really doesn't want tools, she wants his experience thing las HarryHaaren: tools are things people use to gain leverage over the world, so in some sense, it seems appropriate HarryHaaren I'd quite like some more of the experience thing - in the right places. And the power of under-the-hood available when/if required, agreed again las HarryHaaren: but they are also things that for centuries, people have expected to have to learn, to master las HarryHaaren: when i look at the design of iOS what i see is a huge effort to remove learning from the whole user experience las HarryHaaren: to make everything absolutely obvious (once you've learned a few basic ideas about the UI) HarryHaaren sure: not something i'm fond of for all situations: too much generic is bad in the arts / creative sectors IMO las HarryHaaren: when the *task* is simple, this seems appropriate las HarryHaaren: but when the *task* is not simple, i think its inappropriate las HarryHaaren: if you look at a table saw or a crosscut saw or a router, they fail almost every possible test of user experience las HarryHaaren: they are dangerous, loud and more or less completely opaque as far as how to use them to get a particular result las HarryHaaren: and yet HarryHaaren sure: but learn to use it and its no problem. I appreciate that, and i see how it applies to certain software too las HarryHaaren: yes, and the learning about the tool leads to learning about the task also las HarryHaaren: do you know how easy it would be to make a plugin called MakeItSoundBetter that just had 3 buttons? las HarryHaaren: change it, that was better, that was worse las HarryHaaren: people would love this tool. and by using it, they would learn absolutely *nothing* about what they were doing las HarryHaaren: i don't want to help create that sort of world las HarryHaaren: on the other hand, i don't do much auto maintainance, so ... what does that say? :) HarryHaaren fair enough. I probably would. But let people click the advanced button, see the algorithms, and learn about the tool the task ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev Why doesn't Harry learn howto do a dial. I just take a look at his code and it just sucks. Why don't you take a look how it should have been done. For sure you will get it for once. https://sourceforge.net/p/ags/code/HEAD/tree/src/ags/widget/ags_dial.c kind regards Joël ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 12:26 PM, Joël Krähemann weedli...@gmail.com wrote: Why doesn't Harry learn howto do a dial. I just take a look at his code and it just sucks. Hi Joel, The topic isn't the quality of my code: I'm sorry to hear you feel it just sucks. If you wish to discuss the quality of code, please contact me directly by email, or start a new thread with an appropriate topic. But please, lets not stray away from the topic at hand: which is desining user-interfaces with the objective to improve the experience of using a piece of software, and not directly focussing on the features that the software provides. I welcome your input in this mailing-list thread on how we can make FLOSS / Linux Audio programs have a better user experience. Cheers, -Harry -- http://www.openavproductions.com ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 9:01 AM, Florian Paul Schmidt mista.ta...@gmx.net wrote: The important point was though that left to their own devices the non-enthusiasts will be slaughtered by the software they use and maybe we have a responsibility to protect them from themselves. slaughter is perhaps a strong term. perhaps a more nuanced description might run something like this (taking a little inspiration from the video): creating and maintaining **consumer** software with a very good user experience is expensive (relative to other tasks that people do) and takes a significant amount of time. therefore the creation and maintainance of this sort of software requires resources that are not clearly available to most open source efforts. the proprietary software that manages to do this is influenced at some level by where its creators and maintainers get their income from, and the development of the free model used in particular by google points in a direction where the software must allow/empower/enable behaviour by the software developers that are not in the users' best interest (e.g. selling data about the users). ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
Discussion often focuses on thinking for the user or about users that don't want to learn. I don't think that this is what the guy in the video was talking about. And this is certainly not what I mean when talking about usability of Linux software. Experience-driven design, as I understood him, is about convenience and being able to make a tool that is easy to use. But easy to use does not mean dumb usage. It rather means pleasant to use. There is a huge difference between having options in a text file that you have to edit or having them in a GUI. And the difference is not in having to learn - most users know how to edit a text file. The difference is in convenience. There is an inherent difference between going to a folder, locating a config text file and editing it and just seeing all options laid out in a GUI, right within the program. GUI does not have to dumb you down. It economizes your time and effort by showing you all the options and letting you tweak them more quickly and get the information from your options in a more pleasant way. Having a GUI does not mean reducing your options. *---* As an example, when I need to write using a text field the amount of delay in milliseconds, this is not advanced. This just takes up my time, because I need to figure out the amount of ms required for my bpm and then input numbers into the field with a keyboard. One can, of course, argue, that you can learn the formula, but this is arbitrary. As Harry very correctly pointed out, this has little to do with composing. If instead of inputting numbers I get a knob - this is better. But if I get a knob that will tweak delay time in actual bpm-multiple values - this will be much more pleasant. Not because I am not able to learn, but because this helps me get my task done faster. One can, of course, argue that having ms allows you more functionality and this is where the argument often lies - that Linux software allows you more options. But in my view the price of implementing those options (and not implementing easy to use GUI) far outweighs the actual need of those options. How many times in your life have you needed to set delay time to like 123.7863218 ms or other weird time? --- So I think a developer should ask himself - would he want his software to look better and to have a GUI that would help users get things done faster and in a more pleasant manner? If yes, but he has no time - sure, it is clear. If no - then this is a different position altogether. And this then has nothing to do with learning or dumb users. Louigi. On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 5:20 PM, Paul Davis p...@linuxaudiosystems.com wrote: On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 9:01 AM, Florian Paul Schmidt mista.ta...@gmx.net wrote: The important point was though that left to their own devices the non-enthusiasts will be slaughtered by the software they use and maybe we have a responsibility to protect them from themselves. slaughter is perhaps a strong term. perhaps a more nuanced description might run something like this (taking a little inspiration from the video): creating and maintaining **consumer** software with a very good user experience is expensive (relative to other tasks that people do) and takes a significant amount of time. therefore the creation and maintainance of this sort of software requires resources that are not clearly available to most open source efforts. the proprietary software that manages to do this is influenced at some level by where its creators and maintainers get their income from, and the development of the free model used in particular by google points in a direction where the software must allow/empower/enable behaviour by the software developers that are not in the users' best interest (e.g. selling data about the users). ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev -- Louigi Verona http://www.louigiverona.ru/ ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 11:01 AM, Louigi Verona louigi.ver...@gmail.com wrote: There is a huge difference between having options in a text file that you have to edit or having them in a GUI. And the difference is not in having to learn - most users know how to edit a text file. The difference is in convenience. There is an inherent difference between going to a folder, locating a config text file and editing it and just seeing all options laid out in a GUI, right within the program. this isn't universally true. there is a class of user for whom editing the text file is actually the faster, more efficient way to change options, especially if there are a lot of them. whether this group of users is large, and whether it should dominate design models is a separate question. GUI does not have to dumb you down. It economizes your time and effort by showing you all the options and letting you tweak them more quickly and get the information from your options in a more pleasant way. Having a GUI does not mean reducing your options. it doesn't have to mean that, but it often does, especially if the program has a lot of options - people get scared of presenting them all and so they hide most of them. consider the case of all the things you can do with sysctl(1) on OS X that are not represented anywhere in the GUI. they *could* be, but they are not, because doing so conflicts with the experience that apple designers wanted people to have. anyone who needs to do that stuff is fine with the command line, they apparently reasoned. in general, textual presentations of options and parameters *tend* toward showing the user everything; GUI presentations *tend* towared a more structured display of selected options believed to be the most important. these are not hard rules, just tendencies, but important ones, nevertheless. As an example, when I need to write using a text field the amount of delay in milliseconds, this is not advanced. This just takes up my time, because I need to figure out the amount of ms required for my bpm and then input numbers into the field with a keyboard. until you need to use a delay to compensate for a block size delay that you known in samples :) So I think a developer should ask himself - would he want his software to look better and to have a GUI that would help users get things done faster and in a more pleasant manner? this is a secondary question. until you define what the things that are going to get done, you can't begin to ask if or how to help users with those tasks. If yes, but he has no time - sure, it is clear. If no - then this is a different position altogether. And this then has nothing to do with learning or dumb users. i think it has a *lot* to do with it. there are a whole bunch of things you can do in a DAW-like tool to reduce the initial confusion and number of things the user has to do and comprehend before they manage their first recording pass or audio import. garageband is a perfect example of how to do this. the cost is that (a) the user learns very little about the underlying concepts of the application (b) you must hide a set of options that would just confuse first time usage but that may be critical one month in (I've watched my son face this curve with garageband, which is partly why he no longer uses it and is on Live instead). This leads naturally to one of two approaches: more workflow specific tools (e.g. Live/Bitwig, Trackers, audio file editors, traditional DAWs, SuperCollider ...) or gradual reveal in which the user gets to control how much of the full set of possibilities are accessible/visible at any point in their use of the tool. When you give people an app that does one thing (i'm thinking of android/iOS apps here), these considerations don't apply because the things to be done are so easily defined and so limited that it really just a presentation/design issue that doesn't have to sacrifice power for experience. But when you give people an app with the power of (even) audacity (let alone Live or ProTools), there is naturally a learning curve, and it is a critical question how and if the application will try to assist the journey along this curve. First time DAW users are always dumb, no matter which DAW they sit down in front of. How they get to be less dumb is about learning, and the learning is very very dependent on the design and structure and goals of the application. Louigi. On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 5:20 PM, Paul Davis p...@linuxaudiosystems.com wrote: On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 9:01 AM, Florian Paul Schmidt mista.ta...@gmx.net wrote: The important point was though that left to their own devices the non-enthusiasts will be slaughtered by the software they use and maybe we have a responsibility to protect them from themselves. slaughter is perhaps a strong term. perhaps a more nuanced description might run something like this (taking a little inspiration from the video):
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Thu, October 2, 2014 1:01 am, Louigi Verona wrote: Discussion often focuses on thinking for the user or about users that don't want to learn. I don't think that this is what the guy in the video was talking about. And this is certainly not what I mean when talking about usability of Linux software. Usability usually requires a designers eye. Most good UX designers spend almost all their time on design/usability issues. In fact most UX designers are paid to only deign the UX and they look to developers to advise on functional viability of their creations. In most cases in a professional context UX designers will win over developers if there is a decision to be made between form over function. Developers are usually left to fill in all the gaps that UX designers have left in the functionality of their design and In my experience developers are often considered to be skilled labour while a designer is considered to be a working artiste or in some way superior. In open source development most developers are not designers or particularly visually motivated. The exception being graphics/games developers and a few very talented people who cover both disciplines with expert delivery. In Linux Audio Development there is a clear majority of audio focused developers who prioritise function over form. Considering that even software like Blender has a major learning curve for the uninitiated and those guys are expert visually oriented developers it's no surprise that Audio focused developers are less successful at achieving visually beautiful and highly polished usability. IMO, in nearly all LAD applications the developers have tried to achieve usability with the limited skills/expertise that they have in UX design and GUI development. The main problem in this regard is the lack of interest/motivation/time/resources to make things more usable. The idea behind open source is that anyone can pitch in but it seems in Linux Audio Development there are less people pitching in these days than say 10 years ago and there are more individually run projects That's seems to be the main reason why many developers choose to use bog standard gtk/kde to let the user define their own version of usability and steer clear of visually challenging API's like Cairo/Clutter/OpenGL which often require as much effort or more to achieve results than just writing good clean efficient functional and bugfree code. A way to enhance usability across the board might be to have an app of the week where everyone in the Linux Audio community is encouraged to run it and provide any feedback they can think of on mass to the LAU list. That might give developers some incentive to forge ahead with the ideas presented by the community. Experience-driven design, as I understood him, is about convenience and being able to make a tool that is easy to use. But easy to use does not mean dumb usage. It rather means pleasant to use. There is a huge difference between having options in a text file that you have to edit or having them in a GUI. And the difference is not in having to learn - most users know how to edit a text file. The difference is in convenience. There is an inherent difference between going to a folder, locating a config text file and editing it and just seeing all options laid out in a GUI, right within the program. GUI does not have to dumb you down. It economizes your time and effort by showing you all the options and letting you tweak them more quickly and get the information from your options in a more pleasant way. Having a GUI does not mean reducing your options. *---* As an example, when I need to write using a text field the amount of delay in milliseconds, this is not advanced. This just takes up my time, because I need to figure out the amount of ms required for my bpm and then input numbers into the field with a keyboard. One can, of course, argue, that you can learn the formula, but this is arbitrary. As Harry very correctly pointed out, this has little to do with composing. If instead of inputting numbers I get a knob - this is better. But if I get a knob that will tweak delay time in actual bpm-multiple values - this will be much more pleasant. Not because I am not able to learn, but because this helps me get my task done faster. One can, of course, argue that having ms allows you more functionality and this is where the argument often lies - that Linux software allows you more options. But in my view the price of implementing those options (and not implementing easy to use GUI) far outweighs the actual need of those options. How many times in your life have you needed to set delay time to like 123.7863218 ms or other weird time? --- So I think a developer should ask himself - would he want his software to look better and to have a GUI that would help users get things done faster and in a more pleasant manner? If yes, but he has no time - sure, it is clear. If
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Wed, October 1, 2014 17:40, Patrick Shirkey wrote: Usability usually requires a designers eye. Most good UX designers spend almost all their time on design/usability issues. That might be true but UX isn't restricted to visual aspects IMO. Looking at a button to indicate two statuses, is it a pure (visual) design question how large the button is, where it is placed, how it is labeled and how it looks? I think there is a layer between the pure design aspects and the pure functional aspects where the line is blurred. For the button to indicate two statuses, it's inherent that the distinction of the two statuses must work. This is clearly a functional aspect of the (visual) representation, in terms of operating the widget. If the button is too small or placed where it won't be found it's also a functional aspect. The pure visual design aspects come into play *when the above functional aspects of operation driven by visuals are met*. The visual aspects on top of that can be to match a common style (we use rounded corners for our buttons) *without breaking* the functional aspects (i.e. changing the colors in a way that affects the distinction of statuses). This is also where the individual preferences start whereas independently of that, everyone needs to find, read, hit the button and distinguish its statuses. ___dev focus / __ux/design focus / / | |---What is shown to the user, make use of the offered functionality | | --Wording, style/theme, hidden-factor of function | | --Documentation | | | |---The functionality embedded to the ecosystem of the program | | --Accessibility, grouping (..is in the same category as) | | | |---The abstract functionality | | --Fits/amends the core idea, plays well with existing | \ | | ---The concrete implementation | --Algorithm 1 faster than 2 | --Library x | --Already existing (just another parametric call) | : ---The distribution : --Needs special attention to build on y : : ---Other aspects : --Legal, license etc (can we use lib z?) \ (this is a free-form layering, change/comment it if you like) Please note the the dev has/should have the full picture and shares the top layers with a ux/design person. I make an example using that layer stack. Request: provide a way to add a new track in a multitrack app via keyboard shortcut (no more actions/data entry needed) Check legitimacy of request: is it something new or already existing, how does it differ, does it fit to the core ideas, does it bring additional value, does it break existing concepts etc. Possible outcome: feature exists but it's not done in the most simple way (clicking through menus and dialogues needed) Possible arguments against: it can already be done. We can't know how many channels the user wants in the track thus we can't make a shortcut without data entry. Possible facit: In 98% of cases, the users want's to either add a mono or a stereo track. We provide the shortcut just for these two cases. Layers bottom up: --Other aspects: no change --Distribution: no change --Concrete implementation: already existing (just another parametric call) --Abstract functionality: all conditions met --Functionality embedded to the ecosystem of program: group with existing track ops --What is shown to the user: some minor work here (mainly: documentation) In this case, the UX can be improved for users, without the UI changing except for a menu entry showing the action and keyboard shortcut. All the involved steps can be done just by developers. Now one could do that again with the next request: add a button to add a track immediately :) where UI/UX person will play a greater role. Regards Tom ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
Hey Paul, I agree with most of what you say, you are correct in pointing out that the situation is more nuanced. until you need to use a delay to compensate for a block size delay that you known in samples :) Wanted to comment on this. Right. You might want to do that. But, as I said, the price of this one very rarely required feature, in my opinion, is too high. Or else delay plugin was generally understood to be a very different tool on Linux in general. In fact, most LADSPA delay plugins use ms. There is an obvious cultural disconnect here :) the cost is that (a) the user learns very little about the underlying concepts of the application (b) you must hide a set of options that would just confuse first time usage but that may be critical one month in (I've watched my son face this curve with garageband, which is partly why he no longer uses it and is on Live instead). Point taken. However, I would like my point to be underlined as well - I am saying that even in an application that has a steep learning curve there are ways to do it even harder or more pleasant. I mean, Zyn has lots of options. They could've been just a text file. Also, I would like to say this - bottom line is that most apps on Linux are not known for ease of use. And that has a systematic cause, no doubt about it. In my view the cause is that this is mostly software done for oneself rather than for the audience. Additionally, GUI takes a lot of time to develop and Linux hobbyists are generally developers, not designers. That's it, really. Louigi. http://www.louigiverona.ru/ ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Wed, Oct 01, 2014 at 07:01:54PM +0400, Louigi Verona wrote: How many times in your life have you needed to set delay time to like 123.7863218 ms or other weird time? The many times I've had to set a delay time the most convenient unit could have been samples, millisecs or meters (at the speed of sound), depending on the context. I've never had the need to set it in beats. Which are not even a fixed unit but require the delay processor to know the current bpm value. Could be done in an app or plugin that mainly deals with beats, not in a general- purpose plugin. Ciao, -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow) ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Wed, Oct 01, 2014 at 11:32:47AM -0400, Paul Davis wrote: it doesn't have to mean that, but it often does, especially if the program has a lot of options - people get scared of presenting them all and so they hide most of them. Exactly. Good example is Chromium's settings page. It shows almost nothing. Some more are available if you dare clicking 'advanced', but even those are as basic as the default set. The very term 'advanced' is often used to scare people away from touching certain options - don't touch these or you make break something. Hiding options or settings in order to be 'convenient' *is* dumbing down, no matter how you turn it. And the real reason for doing that is often another one, for example to try and hide shortcomings or defects. Or in the case of Chromium to scare the user setting any options that would enhance his privacy or whatever remains of it. Ciao, -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow) ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 4:40 PM, Fons Adriaensen f...@linuxaudio.org wrote: On Wed, Oct 01, 2014 at 11:32:47AM -0400, Paul Davis wrote: it doesn't have to mean that, but it often does, especially if the program has a lot of options - people get scared of presenting them all and so they hide most of them. Exactly. Good example is Chromium's settings page. It shows almost nothing. Some more are available if you dare clicking 'advanced', but even those are as basic as the default set. point your chrome at: about:config :) ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On arb, 2014-10-01 at 12:39 +0100, Harry van Haaren wrote: On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 12:26 PM, Joël Krähemann weedli...@gmail.com wrote: Why doesn't Harry learn howto do a dial. I just take a look at his code and it just sucks. Hi Joel, The topic isn't the quality of my code: I'm sorry to hear you feel it just sucks. If you wish to discuss the quality of code, please contact me directly by email, or start a new thread with an appropriate topic. But please, lets not stray away from the topic at hand: which is desining user-interfaces with the objective to improve the experience of using a piece of software, and not directly focussing on the features that the software provides. I welcome your input in this mailing-list thread on how we can make FLOSS / Linux Audio programs have a better user experience. Cheers, -Harry Excuse me being unpolite I just was thinking about all day. I can say it sucks because me was at the same point. Please take this as a chance to learn where the user benefits of experience. Scaling is done normally between -1.0 ... 0.0 ... 1.0 Your constants are false. I can't say if it was cause of selfishness looking at the code but telling you that you're wrong is cause wanting you to help. have a nice evening and kind regards Joël ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Wed, 1 Oct 2014, Louigi Verona wrote: Also, I would like to say this - bottom line is that most apps on Linux are not known for ease of use. And that has a systematic cause, no doubt about it. In my view the cause is that this is mostly software done for oneself rather than for the audience. Additionally, GUI takes a lot of time to develop and Linux hobbyists are generally developers, not designers. That's it, really. Yes, To add to the point, Just as the author of the talk is developing a phone, so is ubuntu. I was following the progress for a bit and what stands out to me is that almost all of the people who showed up and wanted to add code were interested in porting the the sw to another device (the one that person has) rather than improving the look, feel, experience or even the functionallity. It seems a part of it is that developing for other people can be pretty thankless. One hears about the problems and dislikes, but even when these grumbles have been addressed or fixed, there is rarely any thanks. This is even more noticable for those users who have switched over from proprietary sw who's attitude is more along the lines of why haven't you fixed this yet? to much more abusive language than that. On a community developed project, how the developers feel about their work is much more important when they are paid for the same work (even the same people). Just dabbling in development has made me much more understanding and appreciative of the work that others do. I am much more willing to make do, much more willing to hear no I am not going to add that. Much more willing to use two (or more) tools to do the same job that might be done with one if designed so. The whole idea of we can make something beautiful with a wonderful experience and so users will use it and be free doesn't ring true. An open source project can put a product out like that yes, but as soon as they do it will be copied and even before that, it will not be chosen because it is free of malwere, but rather because it goes with my feeling this week and next week it is back to some closed device because my friend has one. In the end, open devices would have to be made by people just as cut-throat as a closed shop. so what is really gained? -- Len Ovens www.ovenwerks.net ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
Here's an interesting counterpoint or follow up point or whatever. I've queued it to start at the right time, listen till about 31:00 (or longer if you want). The key point I wanted to highlight was Gerhard's point about saying No to user requests. But, being Gerhard, he has other interesting points to make as well. iframe frameborder=0 width=480 height=270 src=// www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x26axz5?start=1530 allowfullscreen/iframebr /a href= http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x26axz5_music-in-the-age-of-democratization-gerhard-behles-ableton-and-matt-black-ninja-tune-coldcut-in-conv_tech; target=_blankMusic in the Age of Democratization: Gerhard.../a iby a href=http://www.dailymotion.com/SMWBerlin; target=_blankSMWBerlin/a/i ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
bah. bad formatting. try this: http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x26axz5?start=1530 ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Wed, 1 Oct 2014, Paul Davis wrote: Here's an interesting counterpoint or follow up point or whatever. I've queued it to start at the right time, listen till about 31:00 (or longer if you want). The key point I wanted to highlight was Gerhard's point about saying No to user requests. But, being Gerhard, he has other interesting points to make as well. src=//www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x26axz5?start=1530 allowfullscreen/iframebr An interesting chat. In his case the reasons for saying no to user requests might be different, though not by much. I also realize maybe I am taking the original question off of what it was asking. The original talk was about something that is perhaps not understandable in the context of creation rather consuming. Many of the newer DEs are frustrating for developers (not just SW development), but developers even though there are many, are a very small percentage of computer users. Most are consumers, games and browsing are almost all that happens. From that POV win8, unity, gnome3, OSx, Android, etc. all make sense. From a developers POV (POV meaning personal use), they don't. Someone who is creating music, video or graphics is a developer and their needs are not the same as the consumer. Once that difference is pushed out of the way and one looks at the user experience from a developer's POV the experience that is expected is different but it is still there. I remember having 4 or more terminals open for creating sw: One to edit (or more), one to try different configurations, one to compile and one to test. I hated the full screen way that a lot of consumer based people worked. Now we have a GUI with all of these things built in. Many audio programs have done the same thing. We have the DAW that takes a full screen and does everything. Linux audio has been different with separate tools connected together. As many of us started with tape... this makes sense to us. Even a home studio had many boxes wired together. If you wanted to add effects to one channel a separate box was used outside of the mixer. A sequencer was a separate box. Each synth was a separate box. Because of physical limitations, the wiring configuration was changed for each project or song... maybe more than once. Soon it was figured out that these routings might be changed not only to get around limitations, but also for artistic reasons. I think some of us miss that ability to be able to wire things as we wish in the monolythic SW blob. One who has worked with physical boxes for everything finds a simple interface difficult to use. They have to go looking for the bits they want. It is like having someone come into the studio and take any box that is not in use right now and put it in storage... across town, in different warehouses according to categories a herbalist would use. For the newcomer who has started on a DAW based all in one box, all is fine, they only use the tools that are visible... Your clip says only for the first few months... but it does agree that the tools shape the music. What I expect has changed, but it is still based on experience that covers a lot of technical advancement. I grew up in a house where all the electronics used tubes. I was given a transiter radio at 8 and I think this was the first solid state device we had. monochrome TV was pretty standard we actually got one in the house when I was 10 or so. The first personal computers had a row of switches on the front like a pdp8. An Apple computer had a 6502 in it and no mouse. In all I am pretty happy that the consumer use of computers is as widespead as it is. This means that HW is relatively cheap. Really most people use computers in a way that could as easily (maybe better) be satisfied with and Xbox or Wii and a keyboard/mouse. I am glad people have not figured this out yet. Or may be that set top boxes havn't taken over. Perhaps what I am saying is that I am quite happy to be using my computer in a niche market and I am glad there are enough people who think the same to be able to persue music the way I do. Often people have a blurb here saying this was sent from a Brand mobile phone. perhaps I could say sent from Pine (or is it Alpine these days?) with a minimal text editor... -- Len Ovens www.ovenwerks.net ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 8:58 AM, Harry van Haaren harryhaa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Linux Audio Developers, TL;DR; Discussing experience driven design for linux audio. I'd like to discuss the age of experiences. Allow me 10 minutes of your time, to watch a video by Aral Balkan talk about development of technology, FLOSS, design, and the future. To start, please watch the following clip: I've skipped into the video to get the section I think is most interesting to discuss on this list: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpagev=ldhHkVjLe7A#t=1625 To bring this discussion to a productive start, I'd like to concider the tools we have available as the linux-audio community: they certainly have features, and empower the user to own thier tools, and the data used with those tools. Should we improve experience for users? Should we design experience driven open software? Should we forward the UX of Linux Audio to the age of experiences? What do users know, that developers might not? What is it that needs to change? Are there even issues here? If so, how do we (the community as a whole) try to solve this? I hope this is a productive and inclusive discussion, and politely request remaining on topic ;) To a fruitful discussion, -Harry -- www.openavproductions.com ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 9:58 AM, Harry van Haaren harryhaa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Linux Audio Developers, TL;DR; Discussing experience driven design for linux audio. I'd like to discuss the age of experiences. Allow me 10 minutes of your time, to watch a video by Aral Balkan talk about development of technology, FLOSS, design, and the future. las HarryHaaren: interesting talk las HarryHaaren: i want to agree with him except for one major issue (for me) las HarryHaaren: i'm not interested in making consumer tools HarryHaaren las, I came across Aral's work recently, and its been very interesting for me anyway. las HarryHaaren: and if i'm not making consumer tools, then my model is not apple but tools for cabinetry HarryHaaren sure, valid point: I agree. las HarryHaaren: and everything he says would be total bullshit and totally inappropriate there HarryHaaren but I don't feel that's the case for the whole Linux-Audio eco-system las HarryHaaren: indeed las HarryHaaren: but basically, the bit that is missing is easily summarized: Live and plugins las HarryHaaren: these are where his experience driven stuff matters las HarryHaaren: and yes, i agree that it does matter HarryHaaren agreed: that happens to be just what i'm particularly interested in :D las HarryHaaren: he even uses the term tools las HarryHaaren: i think this is a serious abuse of the word, but he's not the one who started this las HarryHaaren: when my wife uses a computer, she really doesn't want tools, she wants his experience thing las HarryHaaren: tools are things people use to gain leverage over the world, so in some sense, it seems appropriate HarryHaaren I'd quite like some more of the experience thing - in the right places. And the power of under-the-hood available when/if required, agreed again las HarryHaaren: but they are also things that for centuries, people have expected to have to learn, to master las HarryHaaren: when i look at the design of iOS what i see is a huge effort to remove learning from the whole user experience las HarryHaaren: to make everything absolutely obvious (once you've learned a few basic ideas about the UI) HarryHaaren sure: not something i'm fond of for all situations: too much generic is bad in the arts / creative sectors IMO las HarryHaaren: when the *task* is simple, this seems appropriate las HarryHaaren: but when the *task* is not simple, i think its inappropriate las HarryHaaren: if you look at a table saw or a crosscut saw or a router, they fail almost every possible test of user experience las HarryHaaren: they are dangerous, loud and more or less completely opaque as far as how to use them to get a particular result las HarryHaaren: and yet HarryHaaren sure: but learn to use it and its no problem. I appreciate that, and i see how it applies to certain software too las HarryHaaren: yes, and the learning about the tool leads to learning about the task also las HarryHaaren: do you know how easy it would be to make a plugin called MakeItSoundBetter that just had 3 buttons? las HarryHaaren: change it, that was better, that was worse las HarryHaaren: people would love this tool. and by using it, they would learn absolutely *nothing* about what they were doing las HarryHaaren: i don't want to help create that sort of world las HarryHaaren: on the other hand, i don't do much auto maintainance, so ... what does that say? :) HarryHaaren fair enough. I probably would. But let people click the advanced button, see the algorithms, and learn about the tool the task ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 8:58 AM, Harry van Haaren harryhaa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Linux Audio Developers, TL;DR; Discussing experience driven design for linux audio. I'd like to discuss the age of experiences. Allow me 10 minutes of your time, to watch a video by Aral Balkan talk about development of technology, FLOSS, design, and the future. To start, please watch the following clip: I've skipped into the video to get the section I think is most interesting to discuss on this list: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpagev=ldhHkVjLe7A#t=1625 To bring this discussion to a productive start, I'd like to concider the tools we have available as the linux-audio community: they certainly have features, and empower the user to own thier tools, and the data used with those tools. Should we improve experience for users? Should we design experience driven open software? Should we forward the UX of Linux Audio to the age of experiences? I don't think what he's talking about is comparable to audio yet. There does not currently exist a company that is credibly making a complete, whole-system design approach to problems such as audio recording and live sound processing. You *can* currently start a company with a offering of proprietary hardware, open source software that you will support, tie it up with a new interface (that you also release for free, a requirement of GPL), offer software as a service (that you don't have to release), provide centralized services, and sell support contracts. It's a completely reasonable thing, given other existing companies that do this currently in other spheres. What do users know, that developers might not? If you agree with the premise he's made, nothing. Users apparently want to be told what they want (until they find out they don't want it any more... then they look for something else they're told they want). This time, he's telling us we all want to get involved making products in our own best interests while following a top-down organizational structure(?) I'm confused and my beautiful mouse only has one button :( What is it that needs to change? Are there even issues here? If so, how do we (the community as a whole) try to solve this? To change: incentive structure. There must be some kind of initiative (non-profit or other organization) that appeals to developers and meets the economic constraints of the world we live in, to be feasible. The Indie Phone is likely to go the way of OpenMoko which is pretty dead (no offense to the Moko users who still might be out there). It's evident that Aral understands the problem faced by technology consumers... but I can't quite circumscribe all the things he doesn't get. Chuck I hope this is a productive and inclusive discussion, and politely request remaining on topic ;) To a fruitful discussion, -Harry -- www.openavproductions.com ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 02:58:23PM +0100, Harry van Haaren wrote: Should we improve experience for users? Should we design experience driven open software? Should we forward the UX of Linux Audio to the age of experiences? Well, I watched the video until the end, and the only way to avoid this having been a waste of my time seems to react to it. Balkan's talk itself is an example of 'experience driven design'. It goes down easily as it should according to his own theories, but once you start thinking a bit about what he says you discover it's only a thin layer of sugar around nothing. Take the way he compares 'trickle down ecomony' with 'trickle down technology'. A vague similarity that is supposed to imply something. But does it ? If there is really any meaning to this I must be too stupid to grok it. There is actually a similarity, but not the one he intended, between a trickle down economy and the type of world he seems to dream about: one consisting of a majority of dumb 'users' and an elite of CEO's having great 'design' ideas (remember, design has to be driven from the top), and in between a third layer, just above the unwashed masses of users, of 'developers who need to be just smart enough to realise the bright ideas of their CEO. That division may even de facto exist, I'm not going to dispute that. But I'm not going to help make it worse, and I'll add why: there's one significant difference between the users who expect everything (including thinking) to be done for them, and those who are prepared to learn: the latter will say 'thank you'. -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow) ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
I thought the 'trickle down technology' analogy was a little questionable, but I find a lot in his talk that resonates with me as a user. I would like to react, but I will probably record a podcast lil later. On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 10:10 PM, Fons Adriaensen f...@linuxaudio.org wrote: On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 02:58:23PM +0100, Harry van Haaren wrote: Should we improve experience for users? Should we design experience driven open software? Should we forward the UX of Linux Audio to the age of experiences? Well, I watched the video until the end, and the only way to avoid this having been a waste of my time seems to react to it. Balkan's talk itself is an example of 'experience driven design'. It goes down easily as it should according to his own theories, but once you start thinking a bit about what he says you discover it's only a thin layer of sugar around nothing. Take the way he compares 'trickle down ecomony' with 'trickle down technology'. A vague similarity that is supposed to imply something. But does it ? If there is really any meaning to this I must be too stupid to grok it. There is actually a similarity, but not the one he intended, between a trickle down economy and the type of world he seems to dream about: one consisting of a majority of dumb 'users' and an elite of CEO's having great 'design' ideas (remember, design has to be driven from the top), and in between a third layer, just above the unwashed masses of users, of 'developers who need to be just smart enough to realise the bright ideas of their CEO. That division may even de facto exist, I'm not going to dispute that. But I'm not going to help make it worse, and I'll add why: there's one significant difference between the users who expect everything (including thinking) to be done for them, and those who are prepared to learn: the latter will say 'thank you'. -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow) ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev -- Louigi Verona http://www.louigiverona.ru/ ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 2:10 PM, Fons Adriaensen f...@linuxaudio.org wrote: On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 02:58:23PM +0100, Harry van Haaren wrote: Should we improve experience for users? Should we design experience driven open software? Should we forward the UX of Linux Audio to the age of experiences? Well, I watched the video until the end, and the only way to avoid this having been a waste of my time seems to react to it. given that i don't really agree with his talk, i'm going to defend it anyway. what has happened with automobiles? when first introduced, they were the domain of enthusiasts only. then they spread out to a wider audience, an audience that was frequently irritated by the maintainance requirements, breakdowns and poor behaviour of the machines. that gets us to the 1980s. and now cars are almost all of a near-uniformly high quality, and that quality exceeds the levels attained even in 1970's era elite vehicles. you need to know almost nothing about them to use them (other than knowing how to drive). their reliability and longevity have improved dramatically, as have their safety qualities. maintainance is generally simple - regular oil and other fluid changes, less frequent tire replacements, occasional body work due to damage. oh, and much better fuel mileage too. of course, every single one of these improvements isn't the end of the road (no pun intended), and new engine and propulsion systems still offer huge new areas of potential improvement, along with self-driven cars for some situations. if i give this presentation the benefit of the doubt, what he's arguing for is that *consumer* software, having arrived at feature parity, should be planning to evolve in the same general direction that automobiles have. that is: away from an object only maintainable by an enthusiast who is willing to take the time to learn about it, passing through the phase of an unreliable, short-lived object that gets fixed by others, to reach a state where fundamentally, the owner/user doesn't need to know anything and the thing just works today, tomorrow and the next day. i don't think i want to write software for people who think software should be this way, but i will concede that if you accept the premise, it has its own compelling internal logic. ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Tue, September 30, 2014 15:58, Harry van Haaren wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpagev=ldhHkVjLe7A#t=16 25 Should we improve experience for users? Should we design experience driven open software? Should we forward the UX of Linux Audio to the age of experiences? Every other hip project development model X tries to address UX. Looking at one of the slides.. i find it a strange idea that a CEO would do the (software, UX) design. Of course in small units, multiple functions can be incorporated in one person, but generally the CEO represents, executes and does what the ones that provide finance want him to do. (Just imagine the CEO designing a car for a moment.) Good software (good in a way every POV is respected) is hard to do and a good portion of well working symbiosis between developers, users, people shouting the word are needed. Such an ecosystem can't be created on demand easily. User experience is just one part, and it's a buzz part for some years. It should be easy though for developers to name the *core* functionality and *critical dependencies* of their software. The best software won't unfold it's full potential i.e. if a dependency prevents it from starting up at all (see the many problems some users have to start JACK). Hiding behind the term professional to describe software, that is in fact just a cumbersome pile of crap (and thus professional) is another strategy i can observe. you know, if you're too stupid to dig our silly model of operation you're just not professional. This has to do with wrongly understood elitism. I think without observing users closely it's hard to get a reasonable idea of their experience with any software. Often users bring expertise in the domain of interest while developers bring the handcraft and best practices how that can be translated to a programming model. Ideally, these two share at least some common ground. The more convenient a software gets, the more it must precisely and unmistakably know and provide commonly agreed workflows. One of the most annoying things is software that tries to be smart but fails at being it.. And of course, what is a good UX for one user can be a bad one for another. Decisions need to be taken. Who takes decisions is a question of how the project is organized (if at all) and why it's taken is a consequence of the latter and outcome of a rough common strategy (i.e. we don't add a pink pony, because that's not the focus of the program). The UX topic won't go away so quickly. Every other settop box (is it still called that way?:) struggles to provide a good UI, it's getting better though (observe: fonts and widgets get BIGGER). I haven't seen any single case where an improvement of aspects of the user experience were reached by making things smaller. Cheers Tom ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 02:53:02PM -0400, Paul Davis wrote: ... and now cars are almost all of a near-uniformly high quality, and that quality exceeds the levels attained even in 1970's era elite vehicles. you need to know almost nothing about them to use them (other than knowing how to drive). their reliability and longevity have improved dramatically, as have their safety qualities. maintainance is generally simple - regular oil and other fluid changes, less frequent tire replacements, occasional body work due to damage. oh, and much better fuel mileage too. of course, every single one of these improvements isn't the end of the road (no pun intended), and new engine and propulsion systems still offer huge new areas of potential improvement, along with self-driven cars for some situations. ... I don't think that is a valid analogy. True, quality and ease of use have gone up dramatically, but: * that is mainly the result of fierce competition (and environmental regulations which have drive manufacturers towards high-tech solutions), while today's world of information technology and services revolves about a few de facto monopolies, lots of hype, and a complete absence of regulations. * Cars have different features that fit various needs, and I guess most people select the car they will buy by considering the balance of features and cost. Which is an entirely different approach than buying the latest iphone because it is the latest iphone and even if you don't need it. * Before cars became a commodity they were the toy and status symbol of the rich, not of 'car nerds' (although those exist as well). * Nobody makes free (as in beer) cars. * In most places, to be allowed to drive a car you don't need to RTFM but you need formal training and to pass an exam. More so if you drive something that's not your avarage family car or do it professionally. In other words, even if car drivers may not know much about the technology that makes their cars tick, they are not the typical 'dumb user'. Ciao, -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow) ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
My take on this is much more practical. I make software to fill my needs and expected experience. I may be willing (if it's easy) to add features that are not for me. I may add some features like documentation/packaging that are not so easy because it makes it worth while to share the SW. In the end I have a limited amount of time and resources. I am not a FOSS evangelist and am not willing to tythe money I typically don't have to shove FOSS down someone's throat or build beautiful toys for yuppies (or whatever they are called these days). BTW, maybe add ubuntu touch to openmoco... -- Len Ovens www.ovenwerks.net ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 5:32 PM, Len Ovens l...@ovenwerks.net wrote: My take on this is much more practical. I make software to fill my needs and expected experience. Your expected experience is shaped by the software experiences you've already had. This is why the first users of touch surfaces were so blown away by it - an experience completely unpredicted and unanticipated by previous experience. Likewise, your needs are defined in part by the capabilities we currently understand software to have. Before anyone understood how to do timestretch in a way that preserved pitch, nobody saw that as a need in an audio application. Now it is a very common feature, and among a very sizable fraction of the people who use DAWs, it is a need. Once upon a time, text editors had no undo feature. Once upon a time, editing video on a computer was impossible. Once upon another time, realtime audio synthesis was impossible. The Len of those times, I am certain, would have defined his needs differently than the Len of today. ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 5:03 PM, Fons Adriaensen f...@linuxaudio.org wrote: I don't think that is a valid analogy. True, quality and ease of use have gone up dramatically, but: * that is mainly the result of fierce competition (and environmental regulations which have drive manufacturers towards high-tech solutions), while today's world of information technology and services revolves about a few de facto monopolies, lots of hype, and a complete absence of regulations. You're focusing on h/w and OS vendors. The competition among app/application developers is insane! There's absolutely no monopoly except for a couple of application niches, and even there we've seen some upstarts break down barriers previously thought to be monopolistic. * Cars have different features that fit various needs, and I guess most people select the car they will buy by considering the balance of features and cost. Which is an entirely different approach than buying the latest iphone because it is the latest iphone and even if you don't need it. Again, the items on one side of the analogy are software applications, not hardware. And people will indeed shop around and do have considerable choice, and a wide variety of prices (including zero cost). * Before cars became a commodity they were the toy and status symbol of the rich, not of 'car nerds' (although those exist as well). Photoshop was (and to a limited extent still is) a very high end tool among image editors (were it not cracked copies, it would still abolutely be a status symbol, a sign of being a real professional). ProTools was this way for a long time too. They marked you as a professional in a way completely disconnected from anything to do with computers per se. * In most places, to be allowed to drive a car you don't need to RTFM but you need formal training and to pass an exam. More so if you drive something that's not your avarage family car or do it professionally. In other words, even if car drivers may not know much about the technology that makes their cars tick, they are not the typical 'dumb user'. this is where i am not sure about the appropriateness of the metaphor either. it works in my favor to a limited extent because i prefer to think of software as tools that one must learn to use (and must learn the depths of the task they are tools for), in the sense that driving is a task for which we take a similar approach - car's require training and even certification to use. but it works against my view because of the total separation of understanding how the car *works* versus what you do when using a car (more or less; a bit less for a manual gear shift). ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 4:50 PM, t...@trellis.ch wrote: . you know, if you're too stupid to dig our silly model of operation you're just not professional. This has to do with wrongly understood elitism. it isn't about being a professional or not. You can be a professional woodworker or a weekend amateur and use (functionally speaking) the same tools. The pro might also have a CNC system too, but that doesn't change things in any particular way. The difference is between expecting the user to dive toward a deeper understanding of the task and how the tool makes the task easier (or even trivial), versus expecting the tool to remove any need to really dive into domain specific knowledge. the stuff discussed in the video is all explicitly labelled consumer software (he is trying to differentiate from the enthusiasts tools that GNU and the rest of the open source world has done such an amazing job with over the last 3 decades). my understanding of that this is that it refers directly to software that avoids requiring the user to deepen their understanding of the problem/task and simply aids them in doing what they (think they) need to do. ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Tue, September 30, 2014 23:51, Paul Davis wrote: On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 4:50 PM, t...@trellis.ch wrote: . you know, if you're too stupid to dig our silly model of operation you're just not professional. This has to do with wrongly understood elitism. it isn't about being a professional or not. You can be a professional woodworker or a weekend amateur and use (functionally speaking) the same tools. The pro might also have a CNC system too, but that doesn't change things in any particular way. that was not my point but i agree with that view ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
On Tue, 30 Sep 2014, Paul Davis wrote: On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 5:32 PM, Len Ovens l...@ovenwerks.net wrote: My take on this is much more practical. I make software to fill my needs and expected experience. Your expected experience is shaped by the software experiences you've already had. This is why the first users of touch surfaces were so blown away by it - an experience completely unpredicted and unanticipated by previous experience. Yup, certainly. That was not my point though. Yes 1994 or 95 when I started using Linux, computer audio was midi. X was around, but was a toy, I did everything on terminals accessed with c-a-F* key combos. I don't do that any more because I don't have to. I do use a GUI based DAW and am grateful for those who developed it. The point is that I don't get paid for playing with Linux (and when I did it was for a specific outcome), I can only spend so much time on it (and in the case of HW, only so much money... I have a family to feed). I do like open sw and so when I do create something I am willing to share it in the same spirit but I am not ready to start a world domination campaign. To put together something like this person was suggesting has been tried and failed because it has to happen quickly. Even closed house with lots of money doesn't always manage catch the wave in time. This is part of the reason there is more open SW than HW. SW has a lot less to loose. The HW that is open is a lot more things that can not be bought or where customization is desired and competition is unlikely. Control surfaces, high end preamps, even microphones. Any time hardware is mentioned one of the first responses is that you can buy one for less than making it. So it has to have some other value for the hobbist to make it. But it is still a value that is personal. Besides, What do I need a smart phone for? The more I play with them the more I long for the old clamshell. Its the same with convergence... everything has a phone interface, but I can't do what I want to do on it... without more work. Sometimes the keyboard is the right input device and sometimes this simple text editor is faster and easier than a gui. -- Len Ovens www.ovenwerks.net ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
Re: [LAD] Experience driven design and Linux Audio
Am 30.09.2014 23:51, schrieb Paul Davis: it isn't about being a professional or not. You can be a professional woodworker or a weekend amateur and use (functionally speaking) the same tools. The pro might also have a CNC system too, but that doesn't change things in any particular way. professional tools for woodworkers are extreme expensive ( I know it, because I'm), it's unlikely that a weekend amateur is willing to spend the money for them. (as well a parable) ___ Linux-audio-dev mailing list Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
