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Music UX improvement


3psus

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I would like to propose some changes to the Music section UX, which I think would bring some improvements. After playing in there and using the music section for a while, some things I've noticed are a little bit annoying. I will refer at this image, red notations representing sections and yellow ones buttons.

 

568322423d386_MusicUX.png

 

1: When making queues on the go, I want to click the 3 dots button (button #3) to reveal the menu. The problem is if you hover to long over the image, the black cover with thumbs appears and a click over the button #3 will start the album's playback. This will just kill your queue and play the first track. I suggest that the button #3 always stays on top, or that area #1 remains uncovered: this could allow for other futur buttons next to #3 that would remain uncovered. Leaving the buttons on top seems to be the best option though.

 

2: Everywhere in Emby, clicking the thumb or poster image will get you to a detailed page. In the music section though, this just starts playing the album. If you want to access the detailed page, you need to click the 3 dots to get to the alternate menu, then click open. This is confusing and should be kept the same all over the app: clicking the poster (like area #4) should bring you to the detailed page of the item. Plus, "navigation" clicks happen way more often than "play" clicks. Thus, clicking the thumb or poster should be used for navigation and not playback. For the same reason, I think that area #2 should also bring to the detail page and not start playback. For playback, there is a "play" button that serves this purpose. In area #2, only the yellow buttons should represent other actions than getting to the detail page.

 

Tell me what you think :)

3psus

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Deathsquirrel

The album playing when clicked was a purposeful change to reduce the number of clicks in the app iirc.  I recall EBR saying it was changed because the most likely reason to click an album was to play it.

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The album playing when clicked was a purposeful change to reduce the number of clicks in the app iirc.  I recall EBR saying it was changed because the most likely reason to click an album was to play it.

 

Thx for the input. In my opinion, it is exactly the opposite. I would argue that nowadays, people do not listen to albums, they listen to songs and make playlists with them. To do that, they navigate albums. Thus, the album clicks are more for browsing than for playing. Plus, when hovering over the album, we already get a play button.

 

I am pretty confident about that when it comes to the majority of users for pupular players (like Music app on iOS), but it could be different for Emby users. Maybe stats have been gathered regarding this question in the past? Anyway, I think that looking forward, this is the philosophy that has traction in regards to digital music players and it would be a good idea to adopt it.

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I see. I think though that there certainly is a way to accommodate all habits. But having to dig alternate menus to open the album while clicking on it just starts playback doesn't make sense for me. Maybe that a play button in place of button 3 would probably make more sense, while clicking the album art opens up the album. That is a lot more intuitive and I think it would accommodate a lot of use cases. What do you think?

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  • 3 months later...
bfir3

Definitely makes way more sense to have an Album click open the Album instead of playing it directly. Why would Music be the only non-conformist to this UI design goal? I think many users like to browse their collection before settling on something to play. If I see an album that looks interesting I will click it to see what songs are on the album before deciding if I want to play it.

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