
The worst volume control user interfaces (2017) - ColinWright
https://uxdesign.cc/the-worst-volume-control-ui-in-the-world-60713dc86950
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jackhack
My nomination for the Real World Interface Hall Of Shame - 2002 Toyota Camry
factory stereo system volume control.

First, though, let me ask a question. When one turns the volume control down
on a stereo, what are you communicating to the system? I think a reasonable
answer is "I want things to be quieter." But according to Toyota engineering,
that's a wrong answer.

You see, some genius over at Toyota reasoned, when the operator turns the
volume control progressively lower, to the point one can just barely hear the
music (whisper level), the stereo should make a loud beep through the speakers
to indicate that the system is quiet.

I must repeat that. The stereo beeps loudly to indicate you have reached
minimum volume.

Why? <sarcasm> Obviously because because you might not otherwise realize that
the music is very quiet by simply not hearing any music while rotating the
volume control. And it's well known that the universal sign for "I'm quiet" is
a loud beep, like shouting "I AM VERY QUIET NOW!!" which is what everyone
does, right? This is especially desirable when you have a sleeping baby in the
car. Because sleeping babies love loud beeps.</sarcasm>

The beep could not be disabled.

I still cannot fathom what they were thinking.

~~~
mirkules
This does not surprise me. I once worked for a automotive vendor. “We” were
designing a website which had a user registration portion (I put “we” in
quotes because as I later discovered, all my work I’ve done up to that point
was treated as a set of suggestions rather than engineering solutions by our
HQ in Japan).

Anyway, we discovered that pushing the back button in the browser completely
messes up the form, to which there are well-documented and easy fixes. A few
weeks later, the HQ says they solved the issue, and I watched their
presentation in horror as they explained how the only good solution was to
disable the back button on the entire site.

So, to answer your question “what were they thinking?”:

Obviously, if you need to turn down the volume in the car past the minimum
level, you should turn off the stereo instead.

~~~
jackhack
wow. And as a result the kludges just keep piling up, one on another.

>>Obviously, if you need to turn down the volume in the car past the minimum
level, you should turn off the stereo instead.

Yep, you guessed it -- that's exactly what happened. I'd just switch it off
entirely. I didn't realize until the next car that I had developed an aversion
to using a stereo at all as a result of this experience. It was a few years
before I learned not to flinch when turning down the radio.

Sure, in the larger scale of things, it was only a minor irritation, but once
it gets under your skin it's impossible to ignore. I think the fact that I'm
still thinking about it more than 15 years later, is testimony.

~~~
mirkules
Sometimes there may not be huge glaring problems, but rather so many little
ones that it makes using the product insufferable. Death by a thousand cuts.

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Zelphyr
I feel like he's touching on a fact that we in software development and UI/UX
design need to take heed; know when to stop.

Case in point: Google Maps. The old version used to not be as pretty but it
worked really well. The new one looks fantastic. It's also slow, buggy, and
not nearly as feature rich. Someone, somewhere inside the Google Maps team
said, "We need to put out an update!" and nobody asked, "But, why?"

~~~
Isinlor
I'm sure people asked. But you don't get promoted by not doing things. You get
promoted by doing. So they do.

~~~
cxseven
The median Googler works there for about a year, too, so I guess they have
little interest or ability to understand existing code.

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felixk42
The touchbar’s volume control on the new mac is pretty bad. You have to click
the speaker icon once to bring up the bar, then look at it and drag it to the
desired position.

What makes sense is really just a up and down, or a knob. Volume isn’t
something most users can judge visually.

~~~
Qcombinator
>You have to click the speaker icon once to bring up the bar, then look at it
and drag it to the desired position.

Actually, you don't — tap the "button" and just start sliding your finger.
Same for the brightness control.

I think it is one of those cases Apple sometimes has where they come up with a
good interface, but people are so used to bad ones they don't even realise
that a better way might work.

I'm not surprised that I've seen a lot of complaints about the touchbar; if
you're used to physical keys, a touch-screen is no substitute. (Fortunately, I
was already weaning myself off Fkeys, so I don't really miss them.) But I am
surprised that I haven't seen more discussion of what it gets right. A slider
that you can actually slide is a good UI metaphor for volume (as opposed to
tapping fake keys repetitively). The touchbar also can show buttons from
dialog-boxes, letting you "type" them instead of having to move your hand to
the mouse. It isn't always used to great effect, but it's clear that some real
thought was put into it, and I appreciate the attempt to take advantage of
what it can do.

~~~
jackhack
>>Actually, you don't — tap the "button" and just start sliding your finger.

That works (sort of) but in a way it's even worse. Now you're sliding your
finger a couple of inches to the right of the actual control image, further
damaging the illusion of a physical control.

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theobeers
What about volume control UIs that are generally thought to be OK, but still
drive you nuts? Has anyone else experienced this? Some years ago, when I made
the questionable decision of buying a Das Keyboard, I was surprised by how
much difficulty I had with the volume wheel that they put in the upper right
corner. My prior keyboards had volume up and down buttons, and I never saw any
problem or deficiency in that interface. But when I mentioned my frustration
to a couple friends, they thought I was just being crotchety.

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blueboo
Fun that you can post people’s gifs and images without attribution and make it
the main body of your ‘content’

~~~
pbhjpbhj
The guy should have licensed it from Conde Nast!?

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knolan
After this started on reddit it spawned its own subreddit:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/badUIbattles/top/](https://www.reddit.com/r/badUIbattles/top/)

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ac130kz
The worst volume control? The one which utilizes a non-logarithmic function

~~~
mcphage
I thought the worst was the one where you had to install the version of the OS
with volume you wanted.

