Improved "Long List" Navigation

[Mr.Anderson]

I have just posted a suggestion to iRiver concerning a possible improvement of the Hxxx-series navigation system. The original post is posted here http://www.iriver.com/community/sugg...mp;p_name=H140 and is shown below: (the formatting is better here)
____________________ ____________________ _______

Right now a lot of MP3-player buyers choose an iPod, because of the advantage of the scroll wheel and the so-called easier navigation. This means that it is a critical issue to improve the navigation of the Hxxx-series in order to convince more buyers to buy the much more feature rich and higher quality players from iRiver – both in build quality and in sound quality.

PROBLEM #1:
A major problem with the Hxxx-series is that the scrolling through lists is extremely slow. This is especially frustrating when using the DB TITLE function where a complete list of all the song titles are shown in one list. On an average collection of around 4000 songs it takes 8.30 minutes to scroll through the complete list – which means 4:15 of scrolling to get the middle of the list. Because of this issue, very few Hxxx users actually use the DB TITLE function at all because it would mean that they would only listen to the first hundreds and last hundreds songs in the list.

SOLUTION #1:
Often the user knows the first letter of the title he/she is looking for. Many users have been requesting a faster scrolling function which is indeed necessary, but still, when going to the letter “L”, even with a fast-scroll function it would take quite a while. A possible solution to this problem is to incorporate a “jump to next letter in the list”-function. This function can be activated by a short move of the joystick to the left or the right (like the “next/previous song”-function |<< >>| ).
Well, a fast scroll function within a list is still useful in many situations. Therefore it is logically that a “fast scroll”-function is activated by holding the joystick to the right or left side right (like the “fast forward/backward search”-function |<< >>| ).

I think it is useful to be able to go up and down in the list by using both the “|<< >>| “- hold and -short move joystick operations. But in the current implementation, the “|<<”-function is used for “going back” which is redundant with the “long click” of the joystick. Some people might prefer the old navigation method (where no long click is necessary to go back, but with the lack of the option of going back in the list by the “jump to next letter in the list”-function) and therefore I suggest that you make this navigation behavior optional.

WILL BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST...

[Mr.Anderson]

...CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST

In “DB mode:

- A short "|<< >>|" will jump to next letter in the list
- Hold of the "|<< >>|" will activate fast scrolling (preferably accelerating)
- The volume UP/DOWN will activate the "slow scroll" (current scroll)
- A short joystick click will enter next level or select song
- Holding the joystick down will active the "go back" function

In “File browser mode":
- Either no change from current behavior or the above behavior (optional in the configuration menu)


PROBLEM #2:
A problem when using the DB TITLE function is that the name of artist is not shown when going through the list. Therefore the user often has to guess and see if he/she remembers the artist of the given song - at parties were other people may not known ones collection this is especially problematic.

SOLUTION #2:
You can imagine that this is not always easy and therefore it would be really useful if the artist name (of the currently cursor pointed song) were shown at the upper line of the display when "scroll scrolling" or when stand standing at a given position in the list.

PROBLEM #3:
Quite a lot of users have complained about the graphics shown beside the artist/title/genre/folder etc. This is both related to the DB function where large and small icons occupy 1 cm out of 3½ cm – that is 28,57% of the screen!
In "play mode" ½ cm of the screen is occupied (14% of the screen) by small icons which are indicating that the upper line is the folder, the middle line the artist and the lowest line the title. Compared to the iPod, the Hxxx-series is able to show 17 characters in “play mode” while iPod shows 21 characters on a display of the same size. This might seem insignificant, but actually these four extra characters often make the difference of the need for title scrolling or no scrolling.

Also the line ______________ above the "song process bar" - is of no use. Maybe thise space could be used for something more useful.

SOLUTION #3:
Either make it optional to have the graphics enabled or remove it.
____________________ ____________________ _______

I would like to hear if you guys and girls have other ideas to improve the navigation and usability of the current firmware. I have made a [POLL] were you simply can express your satisfaction or lack of the same by a simple click... but do feel free to come with constructive input such as comments or other ideas to solve the mentioned issues.

Any ideas

[Man1]

I agree that navigation is a bitch on the H1XX's, but I'm not sure your idea, if I'm reading it correctly, is the fastest solution. The problem is that even skipping to the next letter in the alphabet does not alleviate the necessity of then searching through upwards of a hundred songs with that letter at the same old scroll speed. I believe the display currently fits 6 or 7 songs on a screen at a time. So you're looking at maybe a dozen pages to find what you want. Better definitely, but still somewhat slow.

I'd rather have an accelerating scroll like the ipod's, coupled with an option to scroll by page and not line. I haven't thought about it too much, but I'm sure the idea could be refined. Keep up the work though, anything would be an improvement. I have a feeling though that this next firmware will be the last for this player. Good luck.

[TCK]

What they really need to do is make left/right go forward/back a page. But we all knew that, right?

[Mr.Anderson]

Ok, I might not have been totally clear... so I'll give an example:
I found a list of artists (and titles, but never mind) to illustrate. Remember the suggestion incorporates BOTH a fast scroll and a "more than one page jump" and naturally the current "slow scroll" by "volume up/down". Hope this example clears up what I meant in my previous posts....

Affinity - (Same Title) **** YOU ARE STANDING HERE IN YOUR LIST****
Albert King - I'll Play the Blues for You
Albert King - In San Francisco Crosscut Saw
Albert King & Stevie Ray Vaughan - In Session
Alphataurus - (Same Title)
.
.
a very long list of artists/titles that begins with A
.
.
Anekdoten - From Within
Anekdoten - Nucleus
Anglagard - Hybris
Barry White - The Ultimate Collection *** A short >>| will take you here ***
B.B.King - The Blues
B.B.King - How Blue Can You Get;Classic Live 1964-94
Beastie Boys - Anthology
Beatles - Please Please Me
Beatles - With the Beatles
Beatles - A Hard Day's Night
Beatles - Let It Be
Beck - Mellow Gold
Beck - Odelay
Beck - Mutations
Beck - Midnite Vultures
Ben Webster - See you at the fair
.
.
a very long list of artists/titles that begins with B
.
.
Bill Evans - New Jazz Conceptions
Bill Evans - Portrait in Jazz
Bill Evans - Bill Evans Alone
Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy
Bloomfield,Kooper,St ills - Super Session
Blues Saraceno - Never Look Back
Boz Scaggs - Boz Scaggs
Buddy Guy - Slippin' In
Cannonball Adderley - Know What I mean? *** The next short >>| will take you here *** *** Holding >>| will start fast scrolling from here on and down *** *** "slow scroll" can also be activated by "volume up/down" ***
Chet Baker - Sings Chet Baker - Somewhere over the Rainbow
Chet Baker - This is Jazz vol. 1
Chick Corea - Return To Forever
Chick Corea - Remembering Bud Powell
City - Am Fenster
Clifford Brown - With String
Clifford Brown & Max Roach - At Basin Street
Coverdale & Page - Coverdale & Page
Coleman Hawkins - The Hawk Flies High
Curved Air - Air Conditioning

In the case where a song title starting with "L" (A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. J. K. L) should be found, only 11 short ">>|" would be necessary followed by a little bit of fast/slow scrolling. An iPod user would have to do quite a lot of scolling to get to "L".

Of course some people might find "page down" better, so optimally it should be made optional if "page down" or "jump to next letter" should be used (optional in the configuration menu).

[zomer]

I think al you suggested is verry good, but I have some sugestions to improve your thread,

It's abaud the jump to next letter in the list”-function. I would activate this function not with a short move to te left or right but by clikking the rec. buttom, this way, al the ful navigation mode keeps being the same but and only gets improved instead of realy getting chainced.

Further, I would not remove the long line( ____________ ) this thing is good, becouse if you would leave it, the screen would get verry bussy.
But I do think the icons should be removed, yust to make the screen more simple. An other thing would be to put the Album, Artist and title name in the centre, like this:

| Rumors |
|Fleetwood Mac|
| Dreams |

instead of:

|Rumors |
|Fleetwood Mac|
|Dreams |

As last I don't understand why the music nr. is displayed left on top of the screen, I dont think anyone ever realy looks at it, but I do think it's could be useful if it yust would display the nr, of the track in the specific folder,
exemple:

12/16

instead of:

1029

As last It would be nice to make it optional in witch order the the Album, Artist and Title name are displayed, this is becouse I think it's far more useful to display the Artist name above, the album name in the midle en the songtitle underneath.

Example:

|Fleetwood Mac|
|Rumors |
|Dreams |

instead of:

|Rumors |
|Fleetwood Mac|
|Dreams |

These are my sugestions for now, maby we could make one big sugestion thread to Iriver, and make more chance for succesion.

[oblongmouth]

I think the navigation is pretty good myself - i've organised my folders very well and finding a track is very simple. The only things I'd say could be amended would be the removal of icons, possibly a smaller font size and a faster scroll of text. That way you'd get a few more tracks\folders listed on the screen. Thats good enough for me

I do agree that there are a few screen elements that aren't important - such as the song number (at the top left of the screen), but as far as the actual navigation goes I think its OK.

[Mr.Anderson]

Originally Posted by oblongmouth

I think the navigation is pretty good myself - i've organised my folders very well and finding a track is very simple.

That's the way I do it too (using folders), since I only have full albums on my H140. As I see it, the H1xx is actually best designed as an "album"-mp3player... please let me explain what I mean
Organizing in folders with the /artist/album/title structure makes great sense if you have the complete album. If you think of an artist, it is easy to remember the albums which you have of the artist on your player... so that is often an artist->album->title find according to your mood.

In other situations it is much more useful to find the music the other way around. Like this: You see the title and maybe the artist's name (if iRiver implement this feature) and select the song because it fits your current mood.... This is especially essential if you don't have a lot of songs of each artist - else you will often be entering two folder levels (artist + album) just to find that the song you were looking for was not there.
Furthermore it will be very useful with the "title->artist" approach when the upcoming On-The-Fly playlist is released. Use of the TITLE function will naturally make it easier to create playlists of various artists (compared to the artist/album "folder in&out"-method).

Well, you stated that you were satisfied with the navigation of the Hxxx, but I wonder if you ever use the TITLE browsing? - at least I don't because of the badly (my opinion, I know) designed navigation system.
I think it's a shame with such a great piece of hardware (the Hxxx) that the navigation system was not better thought through. Luckily the firmware is upgradable, so if iRiver prioritize this issue, it can be solved.

I think it would be great if we here at "MisticRiver" had a serious discussion of the navigation system and the display layout (and others firmware subjects, but in other threads of course) of the Hxxx-series supported by [POLL]s of our suggestions to get an estimation of if the suggestion would satisfy as many people as possible. When a well-described suggestion has been formulated, it could be sent to iRiver's development department. I am sure that they would be interested in hearing serious ideas from the "MisticRiver" community

Think about it...iRiver receives a significantly amount of suggestions everyday... often thought through by only one single user. I believe that a discussion of a suggestion in a forum like this, will increase the quality of the suggestion and therefore it will have better chances of being accepted by iRiver

[CoolHandLuke]

On the H3xx's, if you hold down the up (+) or down (-) buttons while scrolling through a long list, will the device scroll through the list? I mean like if you were scolling through a big folder in windows with lots of files, and you select one and hold down the down arrow key.

[Teknomancer]

Originally Posted by Mr.Anderson

In the case where a song title starting with "L" (A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. J. K. L) should be found, only 11 short ">>|" would be necessary followed by a little bit of fast/slow scrolling. An iPod user would have to do quite a lot of scolling to get to "L".

Of course some people might find "page down" better, so optimally it should be made optional if "page down" or "jump to next letter" should be used (optional in the configuration menu).

Yeah optional through Configuration menu would be best. But I would still prefer a pure page DOWN functionality. Here is the reason. Suppose you have tons of A's and B's artists, and you want to get to the middle of A's. Then hitting once, would take you to the B's and you would still have to scroll upwards from there... I think in the end, it would work out about the same scroll distance, but hey, a pure page down is always welcome by one and all... An option would be ideal though!