[[Attachment:0]]The current global track player on Audiotool.com, in addition to its design, is missing some key features that would better the overall listening and user experience on both mobile and desktop.
Granted, a few of the design decisions are personal preference, much of it is informed by UI/UX design principles of design and actual user feedback. This in mind, as this is just a request, I ask that anyone interested in this become a reality would pose their takes on the implementation to make it more welcoming.
Feature Overview
- The addition of a playlist control, similar to SoundCloud's "Next Up" feature that helps the listener curate the listening expereince.
- In conjunction with the Playlist, a shuffle option that allows the listener to shuffle the Playlist tracks (i.e. if I click play on a track on an artist's profile, the Playlist will popluate with that artist's tracks, or if I click play on a tracks remixes, it would populate with that content and so on)
- Loop gives the listener the option to loop the contents of a playlist, or a single track
- Volume controls also add an easy toggle for both mobile and desktop that jumps from 100, 75, 50, 25% volume, and mute that also doubles as an indicator of the current volume level.
- Condensed the clutter of track controls (including remix, add to album, share, and report) into a sub-menu. This can be currated by control usage rather than design preference.
I hope there's value in these features and we can work towards a better user-friendly Audiotool together.
Please give any feedback as neccessary.
Thanks in advance
Comments (11)
Looks very nice! Changing the order of upcoming tracks when I'm shuffling is a feature I use a lot with iTunes and Spotify. It'd be cool to see it here. However, the artwork border could potentially spoil the aesthetic of the artwork itself. Also thinking that a favourite button to the left of the album artwork in the playlist window, rather than with the other track controls, would be convenient, similar to the placement in playlists in iTunes and of the 'save to your library' button on Spotify.
Noted, thanks for your feedback!
I did think a bit about the border on the artwork and will take that into consideration. Perhaps something darker than the player background to both match the overall aesthetic and be less intrusive on that of the artwork itself.
Also, adding easy controls for playlist window is a good idea, All other streaming services have that, and I definitely considered adding the favourite button, but ran out of space.
Perhaps I can broaden the width of the window and add both a favourite and add button for easy access.
Tbh, the favourite button only now makes more sense because you want to see which tracks you've already listened to/favourited to help in the curation process. Add would be a nifty feature too for those who have personal playlists on Audiotool that they listen to.
I like this idea. I can't think of anything I could really critique, as I can see this being very handy.
Cheers, thanks for the support!
Epic :)
+support
Awesome implementation, great work!
There are a few little things that could be amended to make the player the best it can be, (some of which were mentioned in the post), from left to right:
(1) The loop feature is currently limited to a single track, if the player is playlist aware, the user should be able to oscillate between looping the current track, the entire playlist, or shuffle the playlist; much like is available on other platforms
(2) The progress indicator, at least for the onmouseover method, could use a thumb to make it more easily adjustable across devices.
(3) The playlist indicator currently navigates to the page which it is derived from, (e.g. a user's track page or an album page). This is a good interim implementation, however it may be helpful for users to be able to dynamically change the contents of the player's playlist (decoupling the player playlist feature from the stagnant data via the site). The resulting feature would be much like SoundCloud's "Next Up" feature
(4) While the volume indicator UI now matches the site (yay!), and the percentage indicator has been added (double yay!!), it doesn't do anything on its own. It may be useful to make it so that when the indicator is clicked, it quickly toggles between 0, 25, 50, 75, and 100% volume (like the brightness toggle under the notification pane does on Windows 10, which is a pretty nifty feature)
All in all, the implementation so far is a huge step in the right direction.
I can't wait to see what's next!
(1) Click through, as other platforms implement it, would work, especially the way the UI is build currently. However, as depicted by the mockup, having it within the playlist dialogue would both declutter the interface and be more logical in terms of design
(2) The thumb makes it easier to click and drag the progress bar especially on mobile, which is currently extremely difficult, given different display and finger sizes. It overall just makes the design more mobile friendly
(3) c;
(4) I don't understand what you mean by "clickable indicators". If you mean along the track of the volume slider, then yes, technically that would work as well, but it again would not be as mobile friendly and kind of goes against material design practices.
(1) In part I like how SoundCloud implements it by always encouraging a playlist, but still allowing the user to toggle it on and off. By this I'm referring to the "Autoplay station" feature which Audiotool can easily replicate using the similar tracks (note, I just realized this has since been depreciated or maybe the intelligence is being revised) There is essentially always a playlist: charts, user tracks, albums, even the newsfeed.
(2) Correct. iOS devices even have a clever implementation on media players where if you move your finger up or down it correspondingly increases or decreases how fine the track steps are. But this may be difficult to implement on the web cross-platform.
(4) You're right, and not including it actually does make sense. Then implementing it in this way comes down to personal preference (myself preferring more minimalistic yet intuitive design)
i really^100 want these features! especially the shuffle!