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Comments
Couldn’t agree more with Model 15. I love the sounds but never make my own patches because my dodo brain apparently can’t make sense of the scrolling interface. Gadget is fantastic though. And translates so well to the iPhone which is rare for an app that complex.
I still use Apesofts apps but the preset system is a PITA. I also don’t like the LFO implementation. The LFOs themselves are great and love the amount of modulation but I hate the double tap to bring it up because that means you can’t double tap to reset knob values to default.
Same here. I feel like the tabbed design should only be when you scale the app small enough. When you scale it up I wish it could convert back to the full UI of the standalone.
I do like to see an indicator, but I think it should almost always be separate from the knob itself, because then the knob becomes (mostly) unusable. Compare AudioThing's trip with, say, ButterSynth's ring around the knob.
Edit: I hadn't looked at SUBscription, I tried it and that's exactly what I mean, the indicator is separate so I can still handle the knob
I like the look of those but the accuracy and consistency of dialing in specific values in things like the LFOs is poorly implemented. Pick a random value and try to dial it in. I have difficulty doing it usually, and often when I remove my finger the values jumps. Another thing that pisses me off big time. I mean, how long has iOS been around and devs still just can’t make knobs that actually work as they should.
He means he likes the circle moving around the outside of the knob, showing the current modulation position (eg the way it is in Bleass Fusion, but doesn’t like when the whole knob itself moves (all the AudioThing apps with Trip function, because those are hard to tweak while being modulated, while ones with the Bleass style implementation are easy to tweak while being modulated, Give it a try and you’ll see, Try manually adjusting the Volume knob in Dials being modulated by trip. Not a good experience at all.
UX/UI masterpiece: NS2
UX/UI magic: NAVE
There is something about Nave that is just fun to work with. A combination of eye candy, eargasm (thanks for that word @dendy!), and the best hardware/software synth “feel”.
Right!
Yes, it’s a real pain to use and keep track of patching. I’m sure it could be scaled down to a more iPad-friendly size.
Here are some of the principles most important to me:
Visibility: A good counter-example is scrolling on iOS/iPadOS. There is often no way to tell something can scroll unless some content happens to be half-in/half-out of the visible area.
Discoverability: Even if something is visible, there may be aspects of it you’ll never discover unless someone tells you about it. That’s a UX failure.
I’m not a fan of overly skeuomophic designs. But I’m also not a fan of completely eliminating all visual clues as to how controls work (or even what is a control and what isn’t). Things don’t need to look “realistic”, but they can’t be too abstract either.
I love the ability to type or otherwise control exact values. This is one thing I really like about Logic on iPad.
I’m a big believer that “form follows function” creates the most aesthetically pleasing designs.
UI designs need to realize that some things, e.g. double-clicking and drag-and-drop, are great shortcuts, but they should never be the only way to access functionality.
One of my biggest pet peeves—with a lot of Apple’s iPadOS UIs in particular—is when they put something in a tiny scrollable area instead of taking advantage of the large iPad screen. The share sheet is a great example. There’s no reason I should have to scroll around the share sheet as much as I do.
Regarding Logic for iPad in particular, there’s certainly a lot of room for improvement, but I’m quite happy with it for a 1.0. Having made tracks in GarageBand, Nanostudio 2, Gadget, Cubasis, Zenbeats, and Audio Evolution; Logic is the one where I personally find I spend the least time struggling with the UI. I do love the NS2 controls for moving and resizing things, though. And I, personally, found the ZenBeats UI so frustrating that it is the one where I eventually exported the tracks and will finish that project elsewhere.
But even if there are some principles I might consider universal, there’s still a lot of room for different things to click with different people. I fully understand that some people find Logic frustrating and that some actually like ZenBeats. Even if the objectively bad parts were addressed, that doesn’t mean either would be ideal for everyone.
Loads of good points.
Re scrolling, yes, sometimes you may not realise something scrolls. The side sections of the interface of Zoa, for example, are guilty of this. That's bad design. People need indicators that something is scrollable, it's not always obvious.
Zoa has a few not very obvious features, but at least it has a great manual explaining them. Manuals that don't include all necessary info are another pet peeve. Or when someone skips a manual altogether and instead puts just tool tips that do not give the user enough info (Kai Aras apps like Shockwave being prime examples)
I do at least wish that all apps had a quick mini built in tutorial to acquaint new users with the UI, like the way Cem does on his apps. But even those tutorials in the Cem apps can sometimes be a bit scanty on info. Binarhythmic, for example, I learnt a lot from watching a vid by some youtuber that explained some important aspects of how the app worked much more clearly and in much more detail than the Binarhythmic tutorial did.
And yes, for a company that prides itself on design, Apple's share sheet, and the whole share experience, leaves a lot to be desired. As does the copy paste experience. Even the internal keyboard in Apple touch devices - I vastly prefer SwiftKey.
I just love this thread. It's clear we have so many members, often themselves designers or programmers of some kind, or just people who have used the shit out of hundreds of apps and know well what works (for them) and what doesn't, who have thought deeply on this matter and have absolute gold to share.
I'd eager that the average iOS dev owns far fewer apps, and has spent less time playing with a wide range of apps, than the average AB Forum member.
Are you aware of the built-in "Slide to Type" feature? I only recently learned about it
are you referring to Triplex or Caelum here? Big agree on value jumping. I was having this issue with an app last night but can’t remember which one it was. It’s such an annoyance.
Oh yeah I mostly agree I just thought they didn’t like to see automation animated at all. Not sure why they went with that over the ring around the knob. I guess maybe the desktop is that way but since it doesn’t have touch they don’t have to worry.
Gotcha. I definitely agree, that way is much better.
oh yes completely forgot NAVE… one of best synths ever made
yeah this app horribly wasted it’s potential - amazing sound but unusable UI
Skipping the discussion for now. Wanted to pipe in though and say I’ll only use something ugly if it’s really unique and/or good. Quantum has been the only app that I’ve used heavily and not held a grudge against it for being hideous and/or dated (even after the “modernized” update was added).
Ah yeah, that dev made some great apps but UI was not my favourite. Same with the Cality / Ioniarics etc apps by another dev. You really feel with those ones, especially Cality, that a bit more effort could have been put into UI. Still, I don't mind so much with older apps - the scene was different, more amateur, a lot less competition, but that has changed and good UI / UX is more important than ever, I reckon
One of the few UI/UX sins that my apps are actually guilty of too 🥴 I guess I can understand the desire to get rid of permanent scrollbars on mobile devices because of screen size and different scrolling mechanism (it's an entirely different situation on desktop though and I have no idea why the same has happened there in most mainstream OSes).
Apple tried to counteract the lack of discoverability for scrolling by briefly flashing the scroll position indicator whenever a scrollable view newly appears on the screen, but it's inconsistently implemented, not very obvious and can be annoying 😬
And not everyone implements this (including Xequence and Trinity 🤯)
you can always do it like Matt - leave on user to choose if he wants to see scrollbars or no, with some easy accessible always on screen button
Yes but that only applies to the editors -- I think we're talking about ANY scrollable content here.
For example, in the file browser, it isn't obvious either that the file list can be scrolled, apart from the "incidental" fact that the bottommost filename is cut off:
But NS2 DOES briefly flash the scroll position indicator, i.e. follows iOS conventions.
you can see it becsuse last highligted character in right stripe is “S” and you doesn’t see any file starting “S” which means some must be bellow .. also that stripe serves as quick scroll to given file starting character
Yes... it's an "emulated" iOS scrolling experience. Probably good enough for most purposes ☺️
A little pop up when the app is first opened informing the user of the scrollable areas might also be a rough and ready workaround?
Anyway, your main UX sin is lack of a 'Latch' function on AU Keys! Quit chatting here and go add that please 😂 🔥
My 2 cents
Developers who I think do a good job with UX are AudioThing and Klevgrand (except Svep which just confused me to the point that I deleted it).
That's the least elegant I could imagine! Almost as inelegant as the once-off "hints" popups in Xequence & Co. 😄
The only truly "elegant" solution is probably to just stick what's worked since the 1970s: Just a permanent (thin) full scrollbar, as it has always been through the ages. Yes it takes away 5% of screen real estate, but seriously -- who cares?
That's not UX, that's a feature request. Now go back to your corner 😄 (the reason I'm more chatting than developing recently is that I'm not in the right headspace for "serious" work but working on changing that...)
This! I am a big fan of visible scrollbars and lament the day that Apple's UX team decided they should disappear and reappear. That is way more annoying than the scrollbar always being visible.
Hope things improve for you soon 🙏 I’m only recently coming out of a long slump myself. There’s always a light at the end.
Still using your apps everyday, though. I’ll one looking forward to latch when/if it comes. But personal wellness and health is always more important.
In the early days of iOS, I noticed that almost every scrollable area in an Apple app would always have the size and the size of the contents carefully set so that, if there were any hidden items, the first one would only be partially hidden. It was a “too clever” solution, but at least it showed that someone there was aware of the problem. But even that isn’t something they pay attention to anymore.