I get it's not the same thing but I wish iOS had lower volume settings. As it is, if 100% is max volume then the difference between 0 and unit above 0 on iPhones is about 30% volume. Like, in the middle of the night when everything is quiet, if I was the set it on the lowest setting and make some game sounds I could hear it 2 rooms away with doors open. But, Apple decided you don't need to set it below 30%. Maybe they're trying to force you to buy Airpods
I upvoted you - at least, I hope I did. HN's vote buttons have such poor UX that a) it's difficult to hit the right button b) it's impossible to know, after doing so, whether you even hit the right button!
Nowadays there is. For the first ten years or so, you just had to shrug and apologize to the commenter for accidentally and irrevocably downvoting them.
In fact, it's the worst of the worst, since it's just plausible looking enough to be the only option on over a billion devices.
On top of that, the EU passed a bill to make them fix it, and they... didn't. If you have headphones that are too loud at 'unit above zero', and use the volume limiter in the device safety section to set it to a reasonable level, it just completely mutes the headphones.
This isn't a hardware issue. Bluetooth devices have an integer volume setting, and the "unit above zero" setting is definitely not '1' on iOS like it is on android.
I've hit this problem with 100% of the non-apple headphones I've used.
This is an issue in many audio players. Maybe not as bad as in iOS (I don't know, can't compare), but the steps when the volume is low are nearly always too large. I like to play audio on low volumes, especially in quiet environments, and it seems designers/developers don't cater to that use case. One step is too low are even complete silent, one step louder is too loud.
Yeah, the default Android volume control had (has?) the same problem. I remember when I got an early Pixel model that I thought there wasn't a low enough volume - this issue was filed in 2015 and is still marked as open: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/37035441
I experienced the same "muted, TOO LOUD" when I bought some very sensitive IEMs, but fortunately I have a rooted Android where I can customise the volume control curve, so I moved more of the steps down towards the lower end of the DAC range and made the loudest just a little beyond "threshold of pain".
the difference between 0 and unit above 0 on iPhones is about 30% volume.
I have found that when playing audio to a HomePod, pressing Volume Up on the phone increases the volume by 1.
But if you immediately press Volume Down, it goes down by 0.5. So, with two button presses you can get the half-step increase you wanted in the first place.
It's like adding "a little" to a volume change command with Siri.
"Siri, turn the volume up a little" turns the volume up 0.5.
"Siri, turn the volume up" turns the volume up one.
"Siri, turn the volume up a lot" turns the volume up two.
In macOS, there used to be a modifier key to have the volume change in half-steps, too, but I've forgotten what it is.
I think the only place that Apple has done a good job with volume controls is the AirPods Max. But even there, I'd like more granularity at the low end.
That would be interesting to have the volume bars logarithmic instead of linear.
The focus ring on manual cinema camera lenses are like this where there is 270° or rotation from near to infinity giving a human plenty of room to move while AF lenses only have 90°. The distances are much smaller and harder to get smooth focus pulls and feels much more linear. So yeah, not the same, but similar-ish in that there's not enough action in the sweet spot and too much in extremes
I face the same situation on Android, there is no way to play music really quiet on Sennheiser TW4. Isn't this also plugs manufacturer's fault? (not valid for apple obviously)
The worst is the “AI transformation journey” volume UI. You talk to an agent to describe the character of the volume level you want. It loads a volume control “skill” and adjusts it.
How about one where the first click sets your volume to max, and then pops up a dialogue to subscribe to a newsletter or sign up for an account? I've never seen such an atrocity, but I could see one plausibly being developed.
One of the worst volume controls I have run across is when the UI tries to simulate a physical knob. More often than not I see this on VST Plugins and I have yet to find one that I actually like - they are all equally terrible.
They appear to fall into 3 buckets:
1) Worst: Direction of the cursor has move in a circular pattern as if dragging a physical knob with a cursor.
2) Annoying, but least common: You have to move the cursor horizontally to move the knob
3) Most common, but still annoying: You have to move the cursor vertically to move the knob.
How about the most depraved volume control design of all: the actual reddit web video player (at least the embedded player on old.reddit)?
The slider is hidden by default. Hovering the volume icon makes the slider appear. There is margin between the icon and slider, though, so you have to quickly "zip" your mouse across this gap/chasm before the slider disappears. If you make it over to the slider in time, your hover then preserves its visibility.
I know for sure the devs at Condé ain't dogfoodin' on that interface anymore!
I like how towards the end they added the vanilla Apple mission control UI in there - which doesn't have any volume control at all just to prove their point. That really caught me off-guard and was funny af.
I have a mechanical keyboard with a metal roller for controlling volume. On my Mac, it works haphazardly. Rapidly rolling it downwards should mute almost immediately. But around 30-40% of the time, it'll just set it to a low volume instead. At least I work from home so this isn't an annoyance to anyone but myself. But it is annoying.
Oh well. From the UI's shown, I kinda like the 0-100 radio buttons. Yes, it's incredibly ugly. But I like the immediate precision of it.
> Should is interesting because of its subjectiveness. It’s a question that only makes sense to be asked in first person. And you have to know about much more than just design to be able to answer it — you have to understand about business, technology, culture, people. Answering the should question is a skill you only get after many, many years answering questions alike.
I wish more front-end designers would consider "should" more often.
"Oh, we can make the scrollbars in our web page auto-hide so PC users get the same experience as Mac users"
But should you?
No. Because one of the reasons I use a PC is because auto-hiding scrollbars on a desktop/laptop is a bug, not a feature, and I disabled that bug while I had a Mac because it's annoying.
"Oh, we can implement smooth scrolling in JavaScript!"
But should you?
No. Because browsers already do it. And your implementation will fail on at least one browser and cause scrolling to just be fucked up. If a user has disabled smooth scrolling, it's probably for a reason. Don't force it back on.
"We can create our own implementation of a drop-down box"
But should you?
No. You're reducing accessibility for literally zero gain. I hate when I'm entering my address, tabbing through the fields, reach the State, and pressing O then R doesn't bring me to "Oregon" or "OR", and instead brings me to Rhode Island. Side note: The order of entering an address is street address, city, state, zip code. If your form order is any different, you're a madman.
I have my sennheiser bluetooth headphones connected to windows 11, for whatever reason, 90% of the time, I move the slider on Windows 11 and it ignores completely the sound on my headphones, just great working products. I have to use the physical buttons on my headphones like a caveman
When I read the heading, I thought: "This must surely be about Windows volume control." But I didn't take into account, that this is a UX design website, so it mostly deals with UX and not with what happens after setting a specific numeric value for the volume.
The one that started shaking more and more as the volume got louder sent me. Sometimes you have to give credit where it's due, even when the result is unusable.
macOS has its own share of UI quirks too. The volume slider is fine, but app management is surprisingly bad for a platform that prides itself on UX. There's still no native way to quit all apps at once, and Activity Monitor feels stuck in 2005. Small UI tools that just get one thing right tend to stick around.
117 comments
I love that there are no images, not even Unicode emojis, no ads, no side bars, etc.
There are alternatives to a simple word change. For example, instead of hiding both arrows, it could just keep the one you pressed, but in grey.
But at this point I think the bad UX on Hacker News has to be an intentional joke.
In fact, it's the worst of the worst, since it's just plausible looking enough to be the only option on over a billion devices.
On top of that, the EU passed a bill to make them fix it, and they... didn't. If you have headphones that are too loud at 'unit above zero', and use the volume limiter in the device safety section to set it to a reasonable level, it just completely mutes the headphones.
This isn't a hardware issue. Bluetooth devices have an integer volume setting, and the "unit above zero" setting is definitely not '1' on iOS like it is on android.
I've hit this problem with 100% of the non-apple headphones I've used.
I have found that when playing audio to a HomePod, pressing Volume Up on the phone increases the volume by 1.
But if you immediately press Volume Down, it goes down by 0.5. So, with two button presses you can get the half-step increase you wanted in the first place.
It's like adding "a little" to a volume change command with Siri.
In macOS, there used to be a modifier key to have the volume change in half-steps, too, but I've forgotten what it is.I think the only place that Apple has done a good job with volume controls is the AirPods Max. But even there, I'd like more granularity at the low end.
The focus ring on manual cinema camera lenses are like this where there is 270° or rotation from near to infinity giving a human plenty of room to move while AF lenses only have 90°. The distances are much smaller and harder to get smooth focus pulls and feels much more linear. So yeah, not the same, but similar-ish in that there's not enough action in the sweet spot and too much in extremes
It also blasts you with a full screen subscribe popup, ostensibly in case you want to see more rehashed content.
http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtime.htm
EDIT:
previously
763 points by yankcrime on July 13, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 477 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27819384
- https://neal.fun/not-a-robot/
- https://neal.fun/password-game/
One example (you need to play tic tac toe to set the volume) https://www.tiktok.com/@vivancodes/video/7612511893340671240
It seems like that account has quite a few more too
They appear to fall into 3 buckets:
1) Worst: Direction of the cursor has move in a circular pattern as if dragging a physical knob with a cursor.
2) Annoying, but least common: You have to move the cursor horizontally to move the knob
3) Most common, but still annoying: You have to move the cursor vertically to move the knob.
The slider is hidden by default. Hovering the volume icon makes the slider appear. There is margin between the icon and slider, though, so you have to quickly "zip" your mouse across this gap/chasm before the slider disappears. If you make it over to the slider in time, your hover then preserves its visibility.
I know for sure the devs at Condé ain't dogfoodin' on that interface anymore!
Oh well. From the UI's shown, I kinda like the 0-100 radio buttons. Yes, it's incredibly ugly. But I like the immediate precision of it.
> Should is interesting because of its subjectiveness. It’s a question that only makes sense to be asked in first person. And you have to know about much more than just design to be able to answer it — you have to understand about business, technology, culture, people. Answering the should question is a skill you only get after many, many years answering questions alike.
I wish more front-end designers would consider "should" more often.
"Oh, we can make the scrollbars in our web page auto-hide so PC users get the same experience as Mac users"
But should you?
No. Because one of the reasons I use a PC is because auto-hiding scrollbars on a desktop/laptop is a bug, not a feature, and I disabled that bug while I had a Mac because it's annoying.
"Oh, we can implement smooth scrolling in JavaScript!"
But should you?
No. Because browsers already do it. And your implementation will fail on at least one browser and cause scrolling to just be fucked up. If a user has disabled smooth scrolling, it's probably for a reason. Don't force it back on.
"We can create our own implementation of a drop-down box"
But should you?
No. You're reducing accessibility for literally zero gain. I hate when I'm entering my address, tabbing through the fields, reach the State, and pressing O then R doesn't bring me to "Oregon" or "OR", and instead brings me to Rhode Island. Side note: The order of entering an address is street address, city, state, zip code. If your form order is any different, you're a madman.