1. flat volume control patrick baudisch microsoft research, visualization and interaction research john pruitt (microsoft user experience) steve ball (microsoft eHome)

2. summary        traditional volume control: audio may fail at several points flat volume control: app volume sliders only

3. contents the problem: “my audio does not play!” flat volume control fixes this user interface design pilot study vs. Windows XP: preference user study: users 2x faster conclusions

4. scenario (nobody I know) during talk: video plays, but no audio crank up volume slider in app (1) volume control panel master volume (5) unmute wave channel (4)  LOUD!!!       

5. a look under the hood mute master volume media player mute    speakers … … wave channel   master sound card channel application professional mixers pc sound cards pc user interface but: pc users are not professional DJs!

6. what was the OS thinking? when I dragged up the slider in the application, what did the system think I was trying to do?

7. flat volume control replace volume slider with smart slider that knows about the volume control hierarchy keep visuals, but change semantics of the slider if application does not play, drag its slider “make it play that loud”“make volume less of equal”

8. user experience similar to automatic transmission media player app 2 speakers app 3 … … ( )

9. auxiliary user interface: the control panel

10. the cpl

11. thumbwheel-based design

12. slider-based design

13. algorithm on load convert to flat volume top-down traversal: multiply by parent bottom-up traversal: maximum whenever user adjusts flat volume copy to hardware volume top-down traversal: divide by parent causes the tight coupling optimizes signal-to-noise ratio

14. deployment: legacy app in new OS can manage apps without volume control can’t animate slider in app application compatibility “shims” intercept getVolume() and setVolume() calls

15. deployment: new app in legacy OS app can run flat volume adjusting channel/master may have side effects flood mark slider warns of side effects

16. pilot study & user study

18. pilot study goal: “are we on the right track?” interfaces: windows XP vs. flat volume longhorn mockup running three sounds sources seven participants with audio experience no training tasks: a walkthrough PC muted: unmute increase CD volume called them on phone, “turn down volume” restore volume repeat with other interface questionnaire to assess comprehension

19. results discoverability of thumbwheel 6 out of 7 did not touch the wheel  added animation to wheel subjective preference 7/7 preferred flat volume  we are on right track

21. user study hypothesis: flat volume helps troubleshooting interfaces: flat vs. hierarchical volume same mockup, same three sounds sources seven new participants with/out audio exp. no training part 1: same walkthrough tasks as pilot study part 2: troubleshooting performance tasks unmute, restore, max one, max all

22. results task completion time ms

23. results error rates: same trend task flat interface control interface unmute 2 of 64 5 of 64 restore 4.4% (1.1%) 11.8% (2.6%) max one 0.4% (0.4%) 27.7% (6.1%) max all 1.0% (0.7%) 8.4% (2.7%)

24. conclusions audio volume control is a problem (6 papers siteseer, but 30k pages google) flat volume control helps troubleshooting (but most of all avoids the need for it) future work other application areas (mixers, gamma) and… vista!

25. vista

26. thanks! read more at www.patrickbaudisch.com thanks to: ed cutrell & mary czerwinski frank yerrace annette crowley larry osterman frank wong and jeremy knudsen