And watch it you should. Beside the hideous color scheme causing a unstoppable gag reflex does anyone really think streching the buttons out to fit the portrait size make an improvement on leaving the space empty?

At some point everyone has his own taste but if Anthony would post a screen shot of that Bluray page I think this discussion would end. Just making buttons bigger so they take up room does not make the panel more attractive.

I'm sure we'll hear about large buttons being eaier to use. 144x 244 buttons are on every page? Right.

Who in his right mind thinks that panel design is elegant? Who thinks that panel design is attractive? Who thinks the Bluray layout is exemplory?

If we are speaking about GUI navigation and ease of use we might be having a vey different conversation. But I'll take the Bluray screen I posted over the one EJ had Anthony create any day. Hey, if I wanted to fill space I could have strethced the buttons on this page. Or I could have filled the space with useless buttons such as a numeric keypad or angle/audio buttons that aren't needed and this client didn't want.


Do not confuse the elements of good layout with GUI navigation. It's what Anthony was mostly writing about and it's all EJ has focused on. Side by side does anyone honestly think the HiFi House Bluray page attractive or in the same league as the one I posted?

I'll grant you Anthony that if you were to argue that the button size was based upon GUI considerations I'd be less critical. But do the transport buttons really need to be streched that much to make them easier to use?

Alan

Well Alan, thank you for the kind words but it seems I may have misunderstood where you were coming from. In the last few posts, I'd have to disagree with you. For instance, i would have to insist your statement,"You are also confusing GUI navigation with page design" to be the fundamental difference between our philosophies. They are in fact one in the same. It's not the first time we'll disagree nor the last but I still love ya.

I'm hoping we can at least agree that the majority of mass produced templates on the street today are poor and do not follow accepted GUI guidelines. We just disagree what those guidelines are.

My main hope is that more integrators put significant thought in to their offerings as it is what sets them apart from their competitors. Just as you may require your technicians to were polo shirts with your company logo, your touch panels represent your company. I don't think that can be overstated.

Color scheme for instance, is a branding choice. Something I am trying to break away from but I also believe that we are selling an experience. One that is tied to our company, not yours, nor qqq's nor guilink, etc. As I attempted to state before, color choice should be the least of your concerns.

I like his better than yours and I'm sure someone else would disagree... Personal taste being different person to person.

Last post, I'm ignoring my friends at the bar....

I don't think it's fair to either of us to pinpoint one source page, but I'll ride the lightening.

Imagine holding the iPad in your two hands, direction pad on the right, transports on the left, least used buttons on the top. This allows for pretty simple thumb control of the major bluray controls with little movement and hopefully little thought. With larger buttons, one would become accustomed to pressing software buttons almost as easily as hard buttons.

Therein lies my reasoning for my bluray interface, which I do believe is superior to yours as a BMW is superior to a Yugo.

Or maybe you're basing your opinion on air, as you have yet to see a GUI I made.


UI = User Interface and GUI = Graphical User Interface. If you're going to cite about a subject, at least make sure you know the right words. Though I can understand you, it's sometimes confusing what you mean because you're using GUI inappropriately. You claim to be a GUI Guru, yet don't use the right words. So that makes your touting less believable, than if you were to use it correctly.


My entire post.


Are you just plain stupid or trying to troll here?

You're practically saying GUI doesn't mean shit and that you can get away with anything as long as people can control everything. That's not the case and clients will NOT be happy if they see how it actually SHOULD be done.

|It doesn't mean a thing save that your attempt as sarcasm doesn't do much save to highlight your defensiveness. If the design is elegant, as is the case with most of your work, the client will surely be satisfied. He has no a priori assumptions and no a postiori experience. Even if the design is inelegant, as long as it works the client will be happy. All of which does little to help us move toward an elegant and visually interesting panel design.

No, read my point above. A lot of our clients have been faced with good and bad GUIs. iPhones or Android Phones and what not. A lot of our clients use Apple computers. Or have used iPods/iPhones. Some have iPads. Some use windows.

An UI does not and should not need to be taught, period.


People have always been using regular remotes. Hence they can work with play/pause/.. buttons those are things we NEED to incorporate into our design. However usability comes first. How aesthetically appealing something is, is an entirely different thing. And even far more different on a person to person basis.

For example, you point out hideous designs to be 'top-notch GUI design'. I however find it completely hideous. Not only that, the UI isn't exactly top-notch either.


Whether it looks 'better' or not depends on your personal view. And more importantly on the view of the user.


How weird that everyone is able to use it then..
My guess is you're missing something apple isn't. For 'odd' reasons everyone can use an iPod and Apple TV.

Hell I let my grandma use my iPad. Guess what, she was able to use it. Easily I might add.

|You'd call this intuitive. I think not. Yet it matters not a hoot because it's quite easy to learn. No GUI is as you claim, rising out of Zeus's head whole, so intuitive that no client need any instruction to operate, as least in my experience.

This is where the issue lies, your experience. You have yet to make a GUI that does not need instruction then.

|All GUIs require some degree of education in how they work, often because the device under control requires some knowledge about how it is to be used.

No, good GUIs point the user in the right direction. If the user has an IQ higher than that of mud he/she would be able to use it.

|If you have no idea why there are red, blue and yellow buttons on the DVR page someone will need to tell you. If you don't know the List button is how you navigate to your recordings someone will need to show you. Having had to "teach" clients who have both cable and satellite DVRs the different presses needed to manage the recording process I have some reason behind the straw dog you have raised.

Maybe your clients are really dumb, or mine really smart. But considering I had a client who can't even read/write I doubt that is actually the case. You need to make the GUI so easy that navigation of those two is [i]nearly[/i] the same.


Maybe you should stop putting everything in the design, you shouldn't clutter your design with things clients don't use.


I don't include them. Blurays generally have the menu buttons and the transport buttons. Why? Because indeed the numpad is unclear.

I build the record function in way that the client needs to hit 1 button and then will be able to select the show he/she wants to record and just needs to hit ok for the show to be recorded. (that is of course done programming wise)


Confusing. The U and the I in GUI are the same as in UI


I did


You're completely turning things around here. You are the one that is unable to get his head of his arse and think out of the little box.



This CAN be used, however if not used it does NOT define it as a bad GUI.

(btw I do use differently shaped buttons, curves, borders, lighter/shades and whatnot)


Good design does not mean a good UI no, that's exactly my point. So you're basing all this of one client? And gestures allow us to use more room, make the UI easier etc.


You mean those "well I need icons, let me google them" icons, right?

Yeah that's a really.. err.. good example.




I do agree with you on this. But you shouldn't forget that he has been rapidly growing to where he is now, and I somewhat doubt he's gonna stop anytime soon. Maybe we'll see this in his next design, maybe we won't.


I never commit myself fully to habits or whatever. I commit myself to 'the best' whatever that might be, that is naturally constantly changing.

And I have experience with this as well. I watch my clients use their systems as well. I question my work every time I make something new. That is what allows me to keep growing. The moment you stop learning is the moment you stop moving forward.

|I'm not that CAIP who sits in his office coding without experiencing a client using the panel he created.

Neither am I

|I am suggesting that many of you are following a priori assumptions that you may want to reexamine. I am pointing you to a colleague's work product to examine, internalize, and make your own who gets the UI right more often than not, even when the UI is unappealing or the GUI less than optimal.

The issue is that I can't find anything in his work that is not the same or better in my own designs.

Honestly I get your points, and they're not entirely wrong. The way you portray them though, makes it seem like everyone is doing everything wrong. Instead of everyone is doing something 'wrong' or rather everyone could be doing something better.

Which is always the case.

Edit:

Take the GUI you posted for example. The icons could be much better. The buttons could reflect what they do better. There could be more difference between different types of buttons. The cursor-pad could be made much clearer.

The all off button could be red, so that people know they shouldn't touch it carelessly.

The space background is cool though, it adds to the design. I like using space backgrounds as well as it combines black with colours and lets other elements come out much nicer.

The red/green/blue/yellow could be red/green/blue/yellow buttons instead of normal buttons labeled red/green/blue/yellow.

The volume controls could be made clearer. It could also reflect the actual value of the volume instead of not displaying any value (other than the gauge).

Lastly, the GUI is everything and yet it's nothing.

Make of it what you will, use it to your advantage.

Kudos,
~Ner

P.s. I'm glad someone brought some attention on this. As I am rather displeased with a lot of GUIs I come across myself.

Edit2: Sorry for the wall of text.

Nerieru continues to misunderstand the point of this thread. Like EJ he does not conceive of the possibility of separating the panel layout from its functionality. Sure they are linked. But many of the templates for sale are elegant. They are pretty. But they are also boring. They often have significant functionality issues. But I stated at the top that I was not interested in this aspect of their designs. I've conceded the point that most template designers are not the best at GUI design. I'll grant you that at some point all of these factors intersect. Scrolling lists, gestures, and GUI code effect that panel design. But if we postulate that many coders don't possess all of the graphic suite tools and that their willingness to purchase templates stems from that then perhaps we can move on to a discussion of the design elements in their work product in order to improve it. It is about improving their aesthetic designs which was the focus of this thread.  It's not about the perfect GUI or elements that make up a good GUI.  It's about elements that make panels both elegant and visually interesting.

Anyone who has driven south from San Francisco on RT 1 and come upon the Big Creek Bridge will accept my point that engineering functionality can also achieve aesthetic Nirvana. For every Brooklyn Bridge there is a corresponding Manhattan Bridge. Functionality and aesthetics do not always merge. Many of the templates for sales are attractive. But they are also visually boring. I think the HiFi House panel garish. Fiasco thinks it more pleasing than the example I posted. I find that hard to believe but then again, for every person there is a mate. I suspect that no template designer would employ those colors in his design. I've conceded that there is much wrong with the panels I posted but I've repeatedly stated that if you look at what he gets right the designs from the template community can be dramatically improved.

I do understand that good GUI design presupposes a particular layout. But gestures or sliders, icons and text are merely tools in the design. Gestures, like hard buttons, permit you to exclude soft buttons from the panel, allowing the space for other buttons--or horror, not placing any buttons on the panel. But gestures, however cool, may not be better than sliders in navigating a large list of data. Putting your finger 2/3 down the slider is better than swiping very hard. Yet I'd imagine that gestures will be employed more because of client demand but more often because of the cool gene gone awry. Yet this kind of discussion was never the intention behind this thread.

"Take the GUI you posted for example. The icons could be much better. The buttons could reflect what they do better. There could be more difference between different types of buttons. The cursor-pad could be made much clearer.

The all off button could be red, so that people know they shouldn't touch it carelessly."

I could have done many things to have improved this but it's beside the point. The point was about the panel containing design elements that were both pleasing, interesting without being over the top. I threw this together in less than 3 days for which I may have spent less than 6 hours on panel graphics. For all that is wrong with it there is something visually stimulating and pleasing about the panel.


Re: iPod. As with poorly designed panels that clients master, as long as something works you can use it. Just because people master it doesn't make it a good GUI. You misunderstood this point when I wrote that clients will accept horrible GUIs as long as they work. The logical fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc is in play here. The iPod won the war but it is not in and of itself not the best way to navigate a large collection. Mastering the GUI does not make it good design. Bad designs are mastered and used all of the time. Yet again, you choose to focus on parts of the discussion I wish to exclude. Everything is not in the design. It is the narrow focus of this thread because this is where I chose to focus.  I am aware that this is not the end all and be all.  I am aware that design and functionality are linked.  I am aware you cannot separate the GUI code from the design.  Yet I chose to focus narrowly on design and I specifically stated that I don't wish template designers to provide a GUI at the very beginning.

Much as find much in your style objectionable I've attempted to be civil.  Despite having your head entirely up your stiff British ass I have continued to waste my time because I think template designers can improve on their aesthetic designs by using design elements they have not used.


Anthony, I've seen you take on the impossible challenge EJ has imposed upon your designs and succeed.  I just think that aesthetically this panel is garish.  If you wish to ignore aesthetics and speak to ease of use or GUI navigation you are making the functionality over aesthetics argument.  I understand branding.  But a choice was made to achieve branding via the color scheme and those colors present their own design challenges. 


"Imagine holding the iPad in your two hands, direction pad on the right, transports on the left, least used buttons on the top. This allows for pretty simple thumb control of the major bluray controls with little movement and hopefully little thought. With larger buttons, one would become accustomed to pressing software buttons almost as easily as hard buttons.

Therein lies my reasoning for my bluray interface, which I do believe is superior to yours as a BMW is superior to a Yugo "

Again you are focusing on use over and above aesthetics.  While we can continue the duality it is possible to attain both.  You are preaching that functionality over aesthetics.  The template designers preach aesthetics over functionality.   I am suggesting that we ignore functionality in this discussion and focus narrowly on the design elements in the design that make the panel pleasing and interesting.

To carry on with your reasoning, a two handed remote ought never to be used to control video since a one handed remote is even more simple to use with his thumb. In fact there is great potential for the cost and template advantages the iPad offers to lead to it being used where other UIs would be better. The ML600/RTI is often a better remote for watching TV. But that is a discussion for an other day. This thread was about panel aesthetics and design elements and composition.

Alan

I'm unclear if you are a retard or merely employing retorical tools. Perhaps you enjoy reading your own quotes and to do so you put words into my mouth. I never suggested the GUI doesn't mean shit. I chose to focus on elements of panel design and compostion that make panels visually interesting.


Nor am I doing this save for the purposes of this thread. There is a sound rational for this and it's been stated. If you'd take your head out of your ass long enough to accept the postulates of this thread you might bring something of value.

Obviously, panel layout and composition are not ends in themselves. I've simply chosen to do so for the purposes of discussion. As with personality disorders, as your posts clearly prove, they can be only a part of the whole. It may not provide the entire picture but it is often wise to isolate it so that it can be analayzed.



Only because I wish to narrowly focus on this one aspect of the process. You cannot separate the GUI code from panel design either. We are speaking about graphical elements of the design and only that--or at least that was what I wished to focus on. You seem to have an other agenda entirely.

Then perhaps your work is not what is under discussion. Quite possibly if you'd focus on the topic of the thread rather than other issues, you might contribute to it.


This thread was not an attack, despite your penchant for just that. It was meant to be a discussion of the missing graphical elements in most template designs and those elements being present in the work product from Crestron's graphic artist. I've only written this about 30 times in response to your insufferable rants.

You want to point out that graphical elements are not the end all and be all who would disagree? But for analytical purposes to focus on one element is permissable--save appearently in your bizaro-world

Were you to step back 2 steps and take into account what I'm trying to point out we might actually have a discussion that everyone would benefit from.



Is your ego really this outsized that you cannot accept that not every comment is directed at you? If you have designs for sale that encompass the design elements I'm suggesting are missing and for which make panels --even attractive panels--visually dull please post. If you just wish to crow that you are the smartest person in the world please do so elsewhere.


Everyone? Every design? I looked at the design temlates for sale and based my comments on that. If you have work product that is elegant and visually intersting please post a link.




I appreciate the input even as I'm completely astounded by the last sentance. If you are unhappy with the templates for sale then please post what you feel is wrong. If they are about GUI compositon that is not the point of this thead. If it is about ease of use ( which might be best lumped into the former ) start an other thread. Yes, all elements, design, navigaton, ease of use, code, contribute to the whole. I wish to focus on one aspect of that system, which ought to be permissible. I'm not stating that aesthetics are all that matter. Rather I've tried to simplify the discussion by limiting it to one aspect in the touch panel design process. If you have built panels that are elegant and visually interesting please contribute by posting what elements in your disigns contribute to this. Then in an other thread, if you are inclined, post about those navigation processes and tricks that contribute to your wonderful whole.

Because I wish to issolate on one aspect and you refuse to accept that premise we have an issue. But the issue is your adamantine refusal to discuss a topic on any terms other than your own. It was a conscious decsion to shape the conversation this way. If you reject the premise so be it. But you state in your last sentance that you don't. Perhaps your unhappiness, like Anthony's, stems from the GUI flow as opposed to the visual presentation. But is it possible for you to focus on design elements that contribute to an elegant and visually stimulating design without wondering off into GUI flow?

In fact, some of your suggestions to the edited panel could be a place to begin. I agree with most all of those suggestions. Why didn't I include them? Who says I didn't? I was posting images not to descibe the perfect GUI but to demonstate elements that made up a visually interesting panel design.

Alan

Honestly, I think the Crestron yellow jacket is the most hideious design and GUI layout there is. I'm a fan of less is more.

If you hold an iPad with both hands, whether in potrait or landscape, your thumbs can easy reach the center of the screen from either side. I understand most of the world is right handed, unlike myself, so I always have volume controls on the top or bottom right.

You keep referring to the flow of the GUI and infer that no one who designs pre made templates knows how to handle it. What is simpler than an activity / source page that takes you to a single page with all the controls you would need for a given source? Some pages, like DirecTV will have an additional popup for selecting channel favorites with a close button that makes it disappear or you can also have it automatically time out.

Now, with multi room controllers, you can either have a house map or a room list selectable from any page that jumps you directly to the source select once a new zone has been chosen with dynamic text at the header that shows the zone name so the client understands they are selecting a source for a different area.

One of the custom jobs I am doing right now has 48 zones of AV, lighting and shade controls, and the ability to view cameras on the TVs as a source. Every room has its own full page with only the options available in that area so there is no confusion. I also limit the sources available in the popups as to what the client wants to see in each room. The guest suites can only access the guest kscape, guest iPort, and guest DirecTV etc...

If you look at the iFusion template I made for CommandFusion, I set it up so the client doesnt have to go back to the main page to select a source, there is a scalable swipe menu across the top that can only have sources available in that zone. It can be used as a single room controller or a whole house controller depending on which options the programmer wants to include.

Yes, its more work to configure it so it can control multiple zones, but the navigation is incredibly simple. You can easily set it up so the room select comes up first when booting the panel and jump directly to a room select page and skip the activities page all together. I would think the activities page would be used in a single zone controller application.

At the bottom there are two extra spaces for something that is room specific like lighting or shades and they would only appear if control is available in those zones. The home button could be eliminated in favor of a map icon, which is included to take you back to the room select page instead of the one with the large activity icons.

There is no mistaking what source you are currently controlling as each page has a spot for an icon on the left side of the header, plus it is spelled out in large text.

I realize some sources, music servers in particular, need to have multiple pages if you are using all the two way feedback and showing cover art etc... The problem is we cant re skin every OEM supplied design and include them in a template. If the client is going to be in the room at the time and looking the monitor, simple OSD controls would be fine unless they want to be sitting out in the back yard and control their music.

My custom touch panels are that not that far off from the pre made templates on the website. I have gone to a lot of client meetings and sat for hours not saying a single word until it was my turn to show the client a sample GUI. The comments are always the same after I am done presenting. "very simple, my wife wants simple".

Having plain text on transports may seem boring, but when the client has elderly guests or their parents staying with them who dont know a red circle is record or a square means stop. There is no confusion when it is plainly spelled out and when you have to substitute plain text for a transport icon that may not be included for something like "slow" on a Tivo DVR page, it just makes everything look uniform.

Would I design my personal touch panels the same way I would my templates? That depends on whether its just me using it or if my wife will be using it as well. When I am out of town, she tends to have the whole neighborhood over for movie nights, so I gave her an MX-850 That sets up the entire theater with one button press.

A perfect example is the steering wheel controls on my vehicle. There is a plus and minus icon and an up and down arrow directly below it. To this day, I still glance down and hit the wrong button sometimes. I press the up arrow to increase volume and it skips to the next track. I know there is no way to change it to plain text, but wouldn't it be nice if you could?

Coming up with a good combination of GUI flow, flexibilty, and nice graphics, and the ability to create custom pages is the key. Alan, I know you have been checking out screenshots of the templates on various sites, but until you actually load a working demo, it not fair to say peope like myself, Aaron, Fiasco, etc.. Have no idea of how a GUI is supposed to function.

If you took a look at the video I posted and have a way to simplify being one button press away from selecting a new source for a given zone and one press away from selecting a different zone, I would love to hear it. The only number less than one is zero. I know the Crestron iPad template is a bit different from the CF version and I am seriously considering changing it to match. The CF version was purposely designed that way so a single popup page could be used for either orientation. I am sure Crestron will add that ability at some point and the template will have to be redesigned to function with the least amount of work for the programmer as possible.

With my experience, when you let the client select the GUI they will be using, simple and uncluttered wins every time. They also tend to like things to be in the same place for a given source, such as the 0-9 keypad or transports.

This thread had taken on a life of it's own and I like to hear peoples opinions, but no one is going to "win" this debate. Everyone has a slightly different idea of what a proper GUI and nice graphical design is and getting two people to agree is hard enough, let alone the ten or twelve who have posted so far.

Again, I have taken no offense to anything here and I would be glad to hear any ideas that people have to improve a design. But I do know a few programmers, and when they are editing a template, not having options is the most frustrating thing. And thats when things get "Frankensteined" together. One of the guys on here bought the iFusion for CF and commented that I didnt have a DVD/VCR icon in the library. So, I created one to match the rest of the icons and sent it off to him. I immediately added it to the template as well, and updated the website to reflect the addition.

Sorry about the novel I just wrote, I usually keep my posts short if possible, but I wanted to explain that I do understand GUI and not just eye candy graphics. If you can combine both in a single design, you got it right. I am constantly going back on custom projects thinking about how to eliminate a step to make it easier for the end user as some of the touch panel files have 50 plus full pages and dozens of popups. The difference is most of the work I do is AMX where the page flips and popups, and popup page timeouts are handled right in the GUI file, so the client can be shown a preview and sign off on it or make any changes they like before they ever have to use it in thier own home.

Our AMX programmer simply sends me a list of channel codes and I assign them to the GUI to make it actually work.

p.s. I typed all this from my iPad, I can now type just as fast in landscape mode as I can on a regular keyboard, if not faster......

You are the only one to take this thread seriously. My point was never that the template designer's work was bad. It was not that the Crestron designer made perfect UIs. It was that he was doing something that your work could benefit from.

You wish to disagree? You think your templates are perfect ( and I am speaking to no one in particular ), fine, don't alter them.

Crestron's designs come with example programs. Most templates I've seen do not. If your UI is predicated on CF and I'm using the Crestron app then your design doesn't work. Are you suggesting that your templates come with source code to run the GUI?

Destiny is predicated upon a scrolling list GUI. What if you cannot code that GUI or don't understand the Systembuilder macros on which it's built? What if you don't like a scrolling list GUI?

Let's postulate that I like to provide his, her and their presets and I'm not using an iPad. I may need to use multi-mode and your design may not support that.

My lighting GUI is typically done differently than most others. I suspect I'm not alone in holding these preferences. As some other poster wrote every one has his own opinion and taste. I don't expect you to draw a panel that meets my coding expertise or preferences.

I use a very different audio GUI than anyone else. I could easily accommodate 48 zones of audio on landscape or portrait iPad or an 4000/8x. I've done 24 zones on a 6L. Sources become more challenging in my GUI and the largest number I've had to deal with is 16 ( though I once did 21 ). The graphics I need for that UI are very different than what you'd provide. Thus I either pay you for them or do them myself. In the end every template will require customization to the individual purchaser's tastes.

I understand that panel layout is but one aspect in the GUI design process. I understand that each person has his own tastes and preferences. I suspect people purchase templates to obtain the pretty pictures they are unable to make themselves. Either they don't have the graphic suites, they are not proficient enough to use them, or they wish to save time from building a panel and pages for every source and sub-system. If my suggestions provoke you rethink the design features in your work that improves it than I've succeeded.

Because most designs come without source code I may have different assumptions and biases for the GUI. I may want the volume graphic, the transport buttons or the preset icons but I may wish to employ a very different GUI than you prefer. That may be because I prefer sliders to gestures when navigating through a large server collection. I know of no one who's purchased a template who has not had to perform substantial modifications to it in order to meet his needs.

What was the purpose of my beginning this thread? It was not to tell you that your work product sucks. It does not. It was to suggest that you are all missing something while become faithful to other design elements that made your work too regular, too symmetrical and too polite. It was to bring to your attention some elements that might improve those designs. It was to prod you to look at your design decisions again in light of my suggestions. Having done so if you wish to continue with the status quo ante? Go ahead. However, I suspect some of the elements that the Crestron guy is using will find its way into your products.

A visually interesting template will not make a good GUI. It will make a visually interesting template. That is still a good design criteria, even if it's not the only one.

Alan

Alan, I think I have you beat. 48 AV zones, 64 selectable cameras, 20 sources, weather, ademco alarm control with 160 entry points (all shown on the touch panel), 6 pages of channel favorites for DirecTV, four pages of XM favorites that show every station available, and a biometric manager for enrolling prints...... All on an AMX wireless 5.2"

Roddy and I showed EJ's video to some perspective clients for their review. Their reaction was caught on video. Please enjoy.

I think those clients may have been reacting in horror because it was 2 girls.

gotta luv the cup chicks. by far one of the best gags you can play on somebody.