Xion Audio Player

Well.. Im just a genius?

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Postby razardk » June 14th, 2009, 4:27 am

Well.. A days work..

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Comments?
Inspiration! q:
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Postby Jikaru » June 14th, 2009, 9:16 am

looks good besides the duplicated buttons on the left. but how does it act?
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Postby razardk » June 14th, 2009, 9:18 am

Wich buttons?.. The onces at the right? -Next/Prev?
- How its acts.. You need to wait to see that :)
Inspiration! q:
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Postby Jikaru » June 15th, 2009, 2:33 am

I don't like the next/previous that are on the left side of the skin...
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Postby xonenine » June 15th, 2009, 2:41 am

I'd like to see the half disc on the left as a full disc instead, going under a semi-transparent right side... :)
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Postby SLoB » June 15th, 2009, 6:04 am

Hmm are those cbuttons just icons or actual real buttons?

If they are real buttons then congratulations, you've just made an unusable skin!

if you need to ask why then you need to do some reading!
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Postby OfficerMike07 » June 15th, 2009, 1:03 pm

SLoB Wrote:Hmm are those cbuttons just icons or actual real buttons?

If they are real buttons then congratulations, you've just made an unusable skin!

if you need to ask why then you need to do some reading!


Hell, I need to ask why... I don't see anything wrong.
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Postby SLoB » June 15th, 2009, 6:20 pm

I'm not giving the answer just yet, I want to see if razardk can tell us why, if he cant then I will enlighten you all :)
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Postby WinstonGFX » June 15th, 2009, 9:56 pm

You've piqued my curiosity, though I think I know what you are getting at. I'll wait to see what the hell you are talking about :D
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Postby Lance » June 15th, 2009, 10:19 pm

SLoB Wrote:Hmm are those cbuttons just icons or actual real buttons?

If they are real buttons then congratulations, you've just made an unusable skin!

if you need to ask why then you need to do some reading!


SLoB Wrote:I'm not giving the answer just yet, I want to see if razardk can tell us why, if he cant then I will enlighten you all :)


I'm also stumped for a solid reason as to why it will be 100% unusable. Are you sure you don't mean just hard to use? The only issues I see is the sheer tiny size of the icons and fact that the icons themselves shouldn't be the hit areas of the buttons otherwise you'll forever be picking at them. But that would just be patronizing us if that's the big answer...surely you wouldn't insult the inteligence of group of fellow skinners with an answer like that? :shock:

I hope it's a good answer. I'm waiting to be copletely blown away with embarrassment as to why I couldn't figure it out. 8) :twisted:

Peace, Lance
I made the Xion Default skin. Ask me questions and stuff.

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Postby SLoB » June 16th, 2009, 12:52 am

Well before we start I'm not trying to patronise or insult anyone, if you thought that then you read far too much into it!
As for insulting the intelligence of the group, not that either, we are all here to learn, if you stop learning you might as well forget being a designer.

Hard to use creates a usability issue period. You only have to look at the changes of Microsoft Office from 2000, 2003, 2007 to see they have spent millions of dollars testing UI changes, not all for the better. But they have done a fairly good job of things considering.

One example is the round main top left button in office which is just that (round), it gives a perceivable clickable area of a circle but it can indeed be clicked right in the corner.

I am of course referring to the button sizes as you mentioned Lance, but it's not really patronising to people that do not have the knowledge in order to create a better UI.

The perceivable clickable area is important for ease of use, efficiency, the buttons have got one thing going for them which is contrast, had they been a dark grey on black then that would have made them even worse.

For us skinners we live and breath pixels, however, joe blogs may not have our pixel sense and they would class this as unusable and move onto the next skin.

We all want to have our skins be used the most, who wouldn't, the skinner only really plays his part of creating the skin, then moves onto the next, whereas the end user will be the main user of the skin for possibly many months or years as is shown by the popularity of some of the older skins.

Given that a huge percentage of people have cognitive impairments the UI is crucial, of course even the biggest companies are still getting things wrong in this area which is why they are spending lots of money to make sure their products do work as we are not looking for just a few people to use our skins but hundreds, thousands.

So what may seem like a small issue, could quite easily get out of hand going into the thousands.
This is where the design aspect comes into play where designers can recognise potential issues before any design work is even started.
So this was a 2 fold issue really, it's ok to design something quickly, I have no problems with that except when the design has issues and the thought process is kind of not carried out with some logical thought to the end user.
Of course over time then the issues are ironed out but some can be avoided purely with a bit of thought and pencil and paper and also reduce the time spent on the end design.

Lets also look at the fovea
This is responsible for the vision of detail, it's size is small on a screen, our peripheral vision picks up movement and contrast, this is why we can spot bigger things quicker as our eyes are drawn to the contrast more than anything, however, if you make the buttons too small, then they are lost with the peripheral vision.
Although that's just a very brief look into the fovea, more can be read on wikipedia.

It's ok to think it may be too small but most people don't look into the reasons why, they just accept it without question, we question, we learn, we improve.
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Postby Lance » June 16th, 2009, 1:19 am

Ahh man I was only kidding dude. Sorry :(

Nice write up though, it's a good read. I agree with all the above :)

Peace, Lamce
I made the Xion Default skin. Ask me questions and stuff.

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Postby Jikaru » June 16th, 2009, 3:27 am

Wow SLoB, I thought the buttons were small too but damn. Just a tad overboard, although I do agree with you. It's usable for me (I have have really good eye sight).

And I'm sure this skin is just about the demonstration of a new feature which would focus on the left side...also this skin looks to be fully utilized in just the playlist psd.

But yeah if this wasn't considered a demo skin I would definitely not use it if the buttons were that small. Better incorporation into the skin would be preferable as well.
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Postby razardk » June 16th, 2009, 5:02 am

Easy, Easy Guys..

I have only worked on this skin for a half a day, my personal meaning is that this skin is pretty good? .. Since i have only used a small amount of time on this skin, and its only a outcast.. I know it have some issues, thats way, i posted it here? To get some feedback.
And yes, we're all learning..
The Title "Genius", just was a fun title..
- I Simply love small skins, and i know the keyboard shortcuts, thats why i small..

- The buttons to the left, seriusly, i just though it looked good, but, i havent found a
function to them..

Image

# Credirts = Credits
Inspiration! q:
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Postby SLoB » June 16th, 2009, 5:54 am

heheh no worries Lance :)

yea Jikaru, I kinda went a little overboard to emphasize the points, but still valid.

I think the main thing with Xion skins is it makes it easier to create skins but we should not look to cut out the design and thought processes, designers design for purpose, the pretty things come as mere dressings.

I only touched the tip of the iceberg really, there is so much more to learn, it's all good tho :)
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