The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

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 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

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.

I'd add the volume control for Quicktime 4. A dial that you had to use a mouse to use.

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

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.

Every now and then I get these hilarious volume control videos on TikTok. They show the most horrible ways for doing volume control

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

Beautiful, forgot about this one. The precursor to some of neal.fun's creations.

- https://neal.fun/not-a-robot/

- https://neal.fun/password-game/

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 liked the one where you make a noise at the level you want to set the volume.

> 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.

Is there a list of these that are actually in real shipped software and not created as a joke?

I've seen this same thing like 100 times. I do not mind.

i know they will have alsamixer in this list.

I once worked for a mainstream headphone manufacturer who added a volume control to a product that was so widely despised that a special firmware release had to be done to disable it completely, or else the returns bin would overflow almost overnight ..

So this had me chuckling so hard, having worked professionally in the pro audio world for decades - I can say that some of these 'solutions' would actually be accepted in certain market segments .. I especially love the designs which use a built-in accelerometer.

It seems the good ol' knob is not going anywhere any time soon.

I just want to be able to get to 11.

Have seen this every single time, the iPhone one is my favorite. If you know, you know.