OnlineVideos Usability Suggestions (1 Viewer)

rimmeraj

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July 12, 2008
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Hi, firstly I just wanted to say how great this plugin is, my 1 year old agrees. Being able to downloaded youtube and similar videos is a major feature for Media Portal. As well as saying thankyou, I thought I could post some of my suggestions about usability based on my experience. I just thought this would be valuable information for consideration in future work, this is not a lists of 'I want this done'. :

it is all about the search
The search is hidden in the right hand menu (correct me if I am wrong). I believe that the OnlineVideos would be far supperior if it simply provided the option to search and also view downloaded videos from the favourited sites. The rest could be in a 'more' or on the right hand menu. I am sure there are limitations about this. Consider that my wife does not understand how to find the search, my 6 year old does not, and they both know how to use the rest of media portal. And almost all the time, they want to search.

Global Search of favourites.
Searching the favourited websites from the first screen would meet 90% of the common users needs. Don't make the user decide what website they want to search, just search the favourites. Yes this will mean more search calls depending on the number of favourite websites, but this needs to be overcome to improve the users experience.

Delete All
As far as I can tell the delete all option from the downloaded videos section does not ask you to confirm the action. I managed to delete all my downloaded videos because I clicked the wrong option. I was holding a screaming toddler at the time, and when all the videos were deleted I nearly threw my keyboard through the tv. Please make this option harder to accidentally execute. I accidentally deleted via the right click menu inside the downloaded videoes section.

Delete all thumbnails....
why does this get asked? just do it, or don't. It confuses everyone when this gets asked on opening. Do the thumbnails take up that much space? I know one thing, the person you ask (my 6 year old, or a guest, for example) has no idea wtf it is about)

Background Update
I know this has already been suggested, but it is really important. Firstly, don't ask about updating, just do it if required. but even better do it in the background. As per 'deleting all thumbnails' the person asked about this (wife, guest or 6 year old) has no idea if they should update or not.

Auto Select format and quality of file
ok, so if a guest does not know about deleting thumbnails, then they have no hope of choosing the right video format. Can a configuration be provided that ranks the formats in priority, and the right one is just used. I even get a little tired of the repeated questions about formats and resolution.

Notification of downloads (start and finish)
The notifications that a download is complete is not at all helpful as it interrupts viewing of other videos or actions. The notifications should not be required, I can easily check progress if I require by visiting the downloaded vidoes.

PS: apologies in advance if these suggestions are already well known, or there is something I am doing wrong. I did check the forums first.
 

offbyone

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  • April 26, 2008
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    Thanks for taking the time to write down some suggestions. A few are already there, some are not easily possible. Here are my comments:

    it is all about the search
    The search is hidden in the right hand menu (correct me if I am wrong). I believe that the OnlineVideos would be far supperior if it simply provided the option to search and also view downloaded videos from the favourited sites. The rest could be in a 'more' or on the right hand menu. I am sure there are limitations about this. Consider that my wife does not understand how to find the search, my 6 year old does not, and they both know how to use the rest of media portal. And almost all the time, they want to search.
    The location of the search is in the hidden left slide in menu, because that is how all other screen in the default wide skin work. OnlineVideos is simply consistent here. You might want to try different skins that don't use a hidden menu (I don't know which do).

    Global Search of favourites.
    Searching the favourited websites from the first screen would meet 90% of the common users needs. Don't make the user decide what website they want to search, just search the favourites. Yes this will mean more search calls depending on the number of favourite websites, but this needs to be overcome to improve the users experience.
    OnlineVideos is not google and does index all site's content. We have to use the search that each website offers. Due to that restriction, a global search over many sites would take a long time (we'd have to wait for all results). It is something on my todo list, but not really easy to achieve.

    Delete All
    As far as I can tell the delete all option from the downloaded videos section does not ask you to confirm the action. I managed to delete all my downloaded videos because I clicked the wrong option. I was holding a screaming toddler at the time, and when all the videos were deleted I nearly threw my keyboard through the tv. Please make this option harder to accidentally execute. I accidentally deleted via the right click menu inside the downloaded videoes section.
    The next version will show a confirmation dialog before the delete operation.

    Delete all thumbnails....
    why does this get asked? just do it, or don't. It confuses everyone when this gets asked on opening. Do the thumbnails take up that much space? I know one thing, the person you ask (my 6 year old, or a guest, for example) has no idea wtf it is about)
    There is no dialog asking you to do that, it is a progress dialog informing you what happens. And as it might take longer depending on the user's hard drive and amount of cached thumbs, it is a good idea to show the user what is going on.

    Background Update
    I know this has already been suggested, but it is really important. Firstly, don't ask about updating, just do it if required. but even better do it in the background. As per 'deleting all thumbnails' the person asked about this (wife, guest or 6 year old) has no idea if they should update or not.
    If you go into OnlineVideos configuration, you can set a check on "update site son first load". Then no question is asked, it is simply performed.

    Auto Select format and quality of file
    ok, so if a guest does not know about deleting thumbnails, then they have no hope of choosing the right video format. Can a configuration be provided that ranks the formats in priority, and the right one is just used. I even get a little tired of the repeated questions about formats and resolution.
    If you press PLAY on the remote or P on the keyboard, this dialog asking for quality is skipped and a default quality is chosen, if the site provides such. since there is no globally unique way that all websites tag their media, their is no common way to implement a sorting.

    Notification of downloads (start and finish)
    The notifications that a download is complete is not at all helpful as it interrupts viewing of other videos or actions. The notifications should not be required, I can easily check progress if I require by visiting the downloaded vidoes.
    Most other users did really want those notifications, I'll see if I can add a checkbox in Config that you can set to hide all of them.
     

    rimmeraj

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    July 12, 2008
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    Thanks for responding with such detail, I had some clarifications on one or two of my original points, please don't feel that you need to reply again as I am not trying to argue, only to clarify my intent, and I don't want to take up your valuable time further :)

    The location of the search is in the hidden left slide in menu, because that is how all other screen in the default wide skin work. OnlineVideos is simply consistent here. You might want to try different skins that don't use a hidden menu (I don't know which do).
    Yes I though this would be a fact of the way skins work, but I guess I was suggesting that it should not even be in the menu. For example can it act the same as the first 4 items displayd (downloaded, favourites... ) but with a search. Anyway I really see it as a vital thing.

    There is no dialog asking you to do that, it is a progress dialog informing you what happens. And as it might take longer depending on the user's hard drive and amount of cached thumbs, it is a good idea to show the user what is going on.
    Yes if the system is hanging doing the delete the user must be notified. But I guess I am hoping that it does not even need to be done regularly, or could be done as a background task (media portal does not support this I suppose). or a configuration option to specify when/how often? I would be happy for once a month.

    If you go into OnlineVideos configuration, you can set a check on "update site son first load". Then no question is asked, it is simply performed.
    Thanks I missed that option and will use it.

    If you press PLAY on the remote or P on the keyboard, this dialog asking for quality is skipped and a default quality is chosen, if the site provides such. since there is no globally unique way that all websites tag their media, their is no common way to implement a sorting.
    That is an interesting thought. I and no one using my setup has ever used the P button (our remote is broken but also disused in favour of keyboard), only because we were not aware of it. Unfortunately it does not really solve my problem as the enter key is the standard way to 'select' and even if P is used the default option is not particularly desirable. For example, I am not concerned about bandwidth at the moment and would like to select the highst resolution format with preference for FLV over other formats. I would imagine this would be the case for many people
     

    offbyone

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  • April 26, 2008
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    If you are talking about YouTube in particular with the playback quality options, you should configure your favorite quality. Press F9 or mouse right click on the YouTube site to bring up the context menu (while in the list of all sites view) - it will let you chose a good default.
     

    doskabouter

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    ...
    The location of the search is in the hidden left slide in menu, because that is how all other screen in the default wide skin work. OnlineVideos is simply consistent here. You might want to try different skins that don't use a hidden menu (I don't know which do).
    Yes I though this would be a fact of the way skins work, but I guess I was suggesting that it should not even be in the menu. For example can it act the same as the first 4 items displayd (downloaded, favourites... ) but with a search. Anyway I really see it as a vital thing.

    Your scenario is only going to work if a global search is implemented, because if you put the "search" in the main list (wit downloads/favorites/etc) and select it, there is no site selected yet
     

    TOPOSPELEO

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    August 11, 2011
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    Before saying nothing that I do not know if this one is the suitable place, but seeing that this thread treats as the same article to which I want to refer I am going to risk; in addition my Englishman has much that to wish and I have to appeal to translators online, and this added to my scanty knowledge in the matter to seeing if I am capable of explaining.
    I have MP 1.3.0 Alpha and the skin updated STREAMEDMP, as well as ONLINEVIDEOS 1.3.0, certainly, a great contribution.
    The matter is that even it does a couple of days the option had CONFIGURATION in the secret menu of the right, under PIN and of ORGANIZING SITES, but after touching hereabouts and there (not neither nor I what I have done), has eliminated this option, it does not exist ¿?.
    Does it design someone to recover her?
    Thank you very much
     

    TOPOSPELEO

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    Thank you very much Offbyone!!!
    He would never have thought that to disconnect this plugin could be the motive, except that by chance it had turned it to connecting and was falling down in the account.
    Thank you very much for your rapid and guessed right response!!!!, and thank you very much for the great contribution of this plugin!!!
     

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