FR-ET Improve the UI Navigation in the Music Library

[gcoupe 63]

It seems to me that navigation in parts of the Music library is unnecessarily clumsy, and I think it can be improved. Let me try and illustrate.

 

1. From browsing the top-level view of your music collection (browsing by Album), choose an album. You then see the track listing for the chosen album, e.g.:

 

 

Notice how the focus is on the "Play All" button (it's highlighted in green). Pressing "OK" on my MCE remote, or pressing "Enter" on a keyboard will select it.

 

2. At this point, ET will begin playing the tracks in order, starting from the first track. However, there is no feedback on this screen to show the currently playing track, as I would expect (and as other music players show). Instead, all that happens is that a green "musical note" icon pops up to the left of the Search icon in the top row of icons:

 

 

I eventually realised that this was an icon that would take me to the "Now Playing" screen.

 

3. Here's where the clumsiness of the current UI navigation manifests itself. Remember that the current focus is on the "Play All" button. My expectation is that pushing the Up arrow button on my MCE remote (or the Up arrow cursor key on a keyboard) will take me up to the top row of icons, since I am already at the top of the action buttons' zone ("Play all", "Shuffle", "Instant Mix"). 

 

But it doesn't. Instead, and somewhat bizarrely to my mind, the focus switches into the middle of the Track list, to Track 3:

 

 

4. I now have to press the Up key three more times before I get focus on the "Now Playing" icon, and can press "OK" to switch to the "Now Playing screen:

 

 

As I say, this strikes me as clumsy. I had expected that the Action buttons, Track information, and Information icons would all be contained in their own UI "zones", and that cursor arrows would be used to navigate both inside a zone and to jump between them.

 

In the illustration I have given, the Up arrow key does not take me upwards, but does a sideways jump. This does not seem right.