Jump to content

Confession from a Former Jellyfin User


dannymichel

Recommended Posts

Chyron
58 minutes ago, pwhodges said:

What does "ugly" or "pretty" even mean here?  I presume it relates to some people's view of fashion in interfaces.

As opposed to what?

Style is always subjective. That doesn't invalidate opinion regarding it.

Edited by chyron8472
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gilgamesh_48
46 minutes ago, pwhodges said:

What does "ugly" or "pretty" even mean here?  I presume it relates to some people's view of fashion in interfaces.

Paul

That is actually a very good question. For me fast and functional equals "pretty" while slow and/or poorly functional equals "ugly." I really do not understand all the emphasis on how the interface looks. I watch content not the interface. The interface for me only matters if it helps browse and select media to watch.

I understand that the flashy type of interface is desired by many people but I do not understand why people are willing to sacrifice, even slightly, performance to get pretty or flashy.

For me empty "eye candy" does nothing but produce the visual equivalent of a sugar high and a sugar high seems to always be followed by a sugar crash that has the same effect as a hangover after drinking bad booze and I don't need or want the headaches.

Emby has done a pretty good job of implementing stuff without sacrificing much in performance and, in a lot of cases, hey even give the option of turning off fluff lick backgrounds. I just hope the do not forget, as Plex has, that their primary job is finding and playing media not making the interface pretty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gilgamesh_48
On 2/1/2020 at 10:59 PM, Deathsquirrel said:

I'd suggest you catch more flies with honey but honestly, who wants flies?!?

...

Actually you catch the most "flies" with sh*t or rotting corpses. And a lot of modern internet design looks like the worst that those two can produce. Content gets effectively well hidden behind the flash and animations and popups that you see all over the internet, I just hope Emby does not fall into the over design trap that has become so pervasive throughout the digital world.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chyron
15 minutes ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

I do not understand why people are willing to sacrifice, even slightly, performance to get pretty or flashy.

One does not have to be sacrificed for the sake of the other.

However, I do think your focus on saving milliseconds is taking the issue a bit too far.

Quote

 Content gets effectively well hidden behind the flash and animations and popups that you see all over the internet

Said content is usually ad-supported. Emby is not.

Edited by chyron8472
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gilgamesh_48
Just now, chyron8472 said:

One does not have to be sacrificed for the sake of the other.

True. But much too often performance, usually due to flashy graphics, does get sacrificed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, chyron8472 said:

I also agree that 1) Emby's app UI looks outdated; and 2) I wish CSS customizations could be used on the dedicated (read:non-web) apps.
For what it's worth, I really like Google's Material Design design language.

 

The UI design flaws I see in Emby right off the bat are:

  • The ability to resize the images should be an option. Some apps have images that are far too big for the screen real estate.
  • The Play/Shuffle/Sort/Filter toolbar makes the top feel cluttered. It should be put in a single options menu somewhere at the top or in the sidebar.
  • The "My Media" section on the home screen scrolls horizontally. Menu options should not overflow sideways.
  • The menu bar at the top overflows sideways on mobile, causing the user to scroll horizontally. Again, this is bad design.
  • If design differs between apps, then UI settings should not forcibly transfer. For example, the Roku app interface requires certain UI changes to be made on the web app, but the web app doesn't look or function like the Roku app, so the choice is to make one or the other look bad.
  • "Next Up" should use posters, not thumbs. Thumbs take up too much horizontal space.
  • "Continue Watching" should show a thumb of the video (ie. a screengrab), to distinguish one episode of a series from another. Or else it should be using posters, not thumbs.

 

In general, Emby just looks...old. It runs well, but it's not very pretty.

What is an example of an app that you think looks better?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chyron
1 hour ago, Luke said:

What is an example of an app that you think looks better?

From a design standpoint, I would say Plex's UI from 3+ years ago looks better.  Not their UI now, though. Now their web UI uses the "backgrounds" as giant banners rather than actual backgrounds, and the background images used are blurred posters (which is why I say 3+ years ago because I think that's the change that marked when the myriad of bad UI design choices started). And when the userbase complained about it, all we heard were crickets. Cue the praise for Emby support actually listening to us.

 

I think what I primarily take issue with as far as Emby's design is: 1) I don't like the menu options scrolling horizontally; and 2) the assumption is made that porting a web interface almost directly to TV or mobile (or vice versa) translates well.

I did not like that making-Roku-app-home-screen-changes prompted the user to change them in the web app. (I say this in past tense because I use Android TV now and haven't tested this there. Yet. I'll check later.) 

But mostly I don't like how the mobile/TV apps feel like they were built for a web browser. The aesthetic doesn't match because the sizes of things are all wrong. On the opposite end of this, but for the same reason, is Kodi. So many people like Kodi a lot but I hate it. I hate it because it is made with huge TV screens in mind, and when they port that design to mobile (and I consume media on my mobile device daily) or desktop, it is terrible. Never mind that Kodi is overly complicated to configure. One reason I got my Nvidia Shield TV Pro was to try Kodi on it (since Kodi isn't available for Roku). Nope. The Emby front end is better. Hands down. I realized that after I installed a skin in Kodi to make Kodi's UI look like Emby's.

 

So I guess what I'm saying, after all that rambling, is: Emby's UI doesn't suck. It just feels rather rough around the edges. Some of the sizing is wrong, and having to scroll horizontally is a mistake.

Edited by chyron8472
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, chyron8472 said:

I did not like that making-Roku-app-home-screen-changes prompted the user to change them in the web app

To what change, specifically, are you referring there?

1 hour ago, chyron8472 said:

The aesthetic doesn't match because the sizes of things are all wrong.

Can you give us some examples of this?  We use size standards designed for a 10' experience in the TV apps (or try to anyway).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

10 minutes ago, ebr said:

I did not like that making-Roku-app-home-screen-changes prompted the user to change them in the web app

 

By that they mean when you change some things in the Roku app the text suggests you change them on the web app for your user rather than offer a way to change them in the Roku app. We just need to get the Roku up to par with the rest. This will happen. We will get there. It is just not there at this very moment. Yet. We are not there yet. :)

Edited by speechles
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

dannymichel

Bros... Emby just needs a complete redesign by a professional design team.

The point of this thread is that it is painfully obvious.

Again, great app though.

Also note:
I'm not here just to complain. Again, I have been a designer longer than a lot of the people reading this have been alive and i have offered my services to emby FOR FREE as @Luke can tell you.

Edited by dannymichel
Link to comment
Share on other sites

arrbee99

An obvious problem is that people like different things. I like horizontal scrolling and am not impressed at the way its being killed off. I like it because I like it. Some may say its not ideal functionally but it works (better) for me. Such is life.

Mock ups would be good if poss to show actual improvements....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

dannymichel
49 minutes ago, arrbee99 said:

An obvious problem is that people like different things. I like horizontal scrolling and am not impressed at the way its being killed off. I like it because I like it. Some may say its not ideal functionally but it works (better) for me. Such is life.

Mock ups would be good if poss to show actual improvements....

This is why professionals in any field exist. Even in ones like design where people for the most part see it as 'all subjective', which is  HUGE MISCONCEPTION i'm seeing going around in this very thread. Experienced designers and design firms 'know best' in the way that they know how to deliver design based on maximum intuitiveness and user behavior and popular opinion.

This is what i believe emby lacks.

Edited by dannymichel
Link to comment
Share on other sites

dannymichel
50 minutes ago, arrbee99 said:

Mock ups would be good if poss to show actual improvements

i can do an extremely impressive and detailed mockup myself. i would if i thought it'd get anywhere, but it seems emby is holding on to what they have for 'sentimental?' reasons and refuse to budge.

... i dunno

Link to comment
Share on other sites

arrbee99

Being a professional, I'm sure you could come up with great stuff that would please an awful lot of people, but, as you've noticed, there's always something people won't like, especially if they (or we) are wedded to personal preferences. e.g. horizontal scrolling.

What can you do...

Don't know if devs refuse to budge. Things have changed in the past and I guess a big change would mean big change across a lot of platforms.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

dannymichel
2 minutes ago, pir8radio said:

are we still talking about this?   😆

I mean i'm not the one who revived the thread, but it will be a topic of conversation and/or mention until emby is redesigned im sure

whether in this thread or not

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chyron

 

17 hours ago, ebr said:

To what change, specifically, are you referring there?

I don't recall exactly. When I used to use a Roku (ie. before last Christmas), there was some setting I remember trying to change in the Emby for Roku settings page. But instead of letting me change it, it said to use the web app to change that setting. Given the context at the time it made no sense to me, since the Emby's appearance in the Web app and in the Roku app were not similar.

17 hours ago, ebr said:

Can you give us some examples of this?  We use size standards designed for a 10' experience in the TV apps (or try to anyway).

Yes, I can.

tt7qKtK.png    QKkHUrk.png

 

The images in this app are enormous. They each take up way too much screen real estate. Only 8 images in that library show up at a given time, and it's kind of silly if you ask me.

Edited by chyron8472
Link to comment
Share on other sites

chef
13 minutes ago, dannymichel said:

i can do an extremely impressive and detailed mockup myself. i would if i thought it'd get anywhere, but it seems emby is holding on to what they have for 'sentimental?' reasons and refuse to budge.

... i dunno

Mockups would be sweet to see. 

Even some wire frame layout mocs would be cool. 

I always enjoy seeing that type of stuff. 😃

Link to comment
Share on other sites

dannymichel
1 minute ago, chef said:

Mockups would be sweet to see. 

Even some wire frame layout mocs would be cool. 

I always enjoy seeing that type of stuff. 😃

you know what?

i might actually do this

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Spaceboy
I mean i'm not the one who revived the thread, but it will be a topic of conversation and/or mention until emby is redesigned im sure
whether in this thread or not

Yeah and then it will be because someone else doesn’t like the new design... you can’t please all of the people and it’s a very few but vocal minority in here doing all the work
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

seanbuff
3 hours ago, chyron8472 said:

QKkHUrk.png

 

The images in this app are enormous. They each take up way too much screen real estate. Only 8 images in that library show up at a given time, and it's kind of silly if you ask me.

"enormous" is a bit of a stretch I think.

Side by side with a "professionally designed UI" they are almost identical in size. Emby being a few pixels bigger.

image.png.4035fc1683aa8990c0162fc1f139ce82.png

YouTube Music on the left, Emby Music on the right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gilgamesh_48
33 minutes ago, seanbuff said:

"enormous" is a bit of a stretch I think.

Side by side with a "professionally designed UI" they are almost identical in size. Emby being a few pixels bigger.

As I have said the interface matters very little to me except as it interferes with my ability to find and play my media. However the posters are all so big that they do interfere by limiting how much can be seen on the screen. My eyes are not very good but, even for me, those huge posters are much larger than needed. YouTube is too large and Emby is too large and almost all sites I deal with are too large.

What I want to see is more posters and more titles not larger posters and titles.

Fortunately that is easily fixable in the web interface by simply adjusting the zoom percentage. But there is no such adjustment available in the clients I use to watch my media. It is a misconception that everyone wants to see large pictures on the screen when what a lot of us want to see is more information. In fact I would be perfectly happy with just titles in a grid on the screen. Something web designers do not seem to realize is that most people can read and the pictures are just eye candy.

I think there should be three modes:

1: What we see now

2: A small picture mode

3. A minimalist mode that is almost all text.

I know that every designer thinks they know what the user wants but that simply is not true. What users want is very personal and designs should reflect that as much as possible.

Edited by Gilgamesh_48
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chyron



that is easily fixable in the web interface by simply adjusting the zoom percentage. But there is no such adjustment available in the clients I use to watch my media.


Exactly this.


Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chyron
11 hours ago, seanbuff said:
"enormous" is a bit of a stretch I think.
Side by side with a "professionally designed UI" they are almost identical in size. Emby being a few pixels bigger.
image.png.4035fc1683aa8990c0162fc1f139ce82.png
YouTube Music on the left, Emby Music on the right.

How about compared to Plex?

This is 9 images---3 per row. And that's even with titles included.

67c266c4c58f537edb9fb7f07cc79c37.jpg

Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk
 

Edited by chyron8472
Link to comment
Share on other sites

BAlGaInTl
14 hours ago, dannymichel said:

i can do an extremely impressive and detailed mockup myself. i would if i thought it'd get anywhere, but it seems emby is holding on to what they have for 'sentimental?' reasons and refuse to budge.

... i dunno

I think that the Emby Team has shown that they can make change.

That being said, it's a small team, and functionality does take precedence.  

The design has evolved incrementally over time, and I expect it will continue to do so.  A "complete redesign" of the Emby ecosystem would be extremely costly, and could likely kill the project as we know it.  I don't think anyone wants that.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...