This one is admittedly rather broad, but I can give a list of examples which illustrate my point.
I really love Mixbus, it saves me oodles of time and really narrows my focus on the first principles of mix engineering. I no longer have every plugin under the sun. I simply have eq, volume, and compression, with delay and verb... maybe 1 or 2 special effects for weird sounds. It has enhanced not only my abilities as a sound engineer, but also saved me time and improved my reputation for speed.
However, there are some minor things that are either inconsistent, require a right-click, or are just kind of fiddly, which I feel could be better served being accessed a little differently.
One of the most important aspects of good UX design, which I am sure you're aware, is that if the user asks "How do I do X?" they should be able to answer it with the first intuition. The instructor should be able to say "how do you think it should happen" and the student should be able to guess. This is not always achievable, but there are some very obvious examples of where it can be achieved with very little effort.
Beyond the intuitive, we also have a bedrock of common functions that most programs share in the modern era. An obvious example is Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V are cut and paste respectively. In this contrived example, there is an unknown trick which most people don't consider: common menu functions are reflected in shortcuts.
Mixbus seems to have gone most of the way towards completing this notion of intuitive controls, however overall it seems there could be some added benefit from viewing completely fresh and outside influence.
Before we start, I would also like to invite those responding to avoid the fallback of "but you can add that as a keyboard shortcut". Yes, some of these we can and that's great but also we shouldn't have to for obvious functionality. If people want to map away from the common conventions of UX design, then heck yes let them do that but the uninitiated should have a running start.
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So, to the examples...
The main ones are the delete button, renaming tracks, adding a plugin, showing post/pre-fade more obviously, actions affected by multi-selecting tracks, and a few others which I'll list below.
DELETE BUTTON
Ok so the first one is the delete button. There are times when it works and times when it doesn't, though one would reasonably expect it would work consistently regardless of context. For example, deleting a recorded clip? Works. Deleting a marker or an actual track? Doesn't work. The only way to achieve deletion in the latter two examples is to right-click and perform the ritual menu-dive. This is a very simple fix and would save my right hand from an impending RSI!
RENAMING TRACKS
Renaming tracks is done with a right-click, into the menu, left click Rename. This gets rather tedious, especially when renaming lots of tracks. A better way would be adding double-click functionality (left-click). I've tried to map this function Global -> Main -> Rename to "R" but it doesn't work when hovering over the track title, or even at all. Perhaps this is a bug but it's still worth mentioning here.
ADDING A PLUGIN AND VISUALIZING POST/PRE FADE
This is a great example where a fantastic control design is hampered by the visualization of the UX itself. Double-click to add a plugin? Yes please! The only problem is I want to add most, if not all, of my plugins/inserts as pre-fade (as I'm sure do most engineers). Where do I click now? Oh good, in a tiny area between the default Comp and Fader. This is beyond tedious and undoes the great design already in place. What would be an easy fix, is to have a pre-fade and post-fade default setting globally and then adjustments to toggle in the menu of each track (however, imo the global setting would be best served to ship as pre-fade). Most importantly, I would like to see the Fader module visually sit at the bottom of the dark space for pre-fade, and next to the Comp unit for post-fade. OR Simply having the Fader module sit in the middle of this dark space to allow for ultimate flexibility.
This would help to enhance the principle of first glance, which is absolutely imperative in UX design for industry tooling of this nature.
ACTIONS AFFECTED BY MULTI-SELECT
This one is very confusing and something I tried to bring up with the devs of Ardour, naively assuming feature requests wouldn't be accepted by Mixbux to retain the upstream-downstream codebase. Regardless, they were not receptive at all to the idea despite a rather lengthy and airtight point.
In short, there doesn't seem to be any obvious reason for multi-select and the presence of this disparity violates the idea of intuitive design in UX. There are functions which already exist on the directional pad which are not on the mouse, for no real reason.
One of the devs, I won't say who, tried to explain his philosophy of driving the user towards a certain workflow by enforcing certain usability traits. I agree with him on this for the most part, but he seems to have forgotten that by doing this to extremes it only cuts of the student before they have a chance to adjust and adds to the frustration of learning a new tool. Ultimately this means there can be no link towards the desired outcome which then renders the philosophy pointless. I couldn't get through to them and now my rather long post is just being ignored.
If something exists, it should serve a purpose and for something so common as multi-select it should be very obvious. Whether or not it actually does do something and I can't see simultaneously is beside and proves the point, as after a few clicks and plays I can't find any use for it anywhere.
As a user, I would assume the following functions from multi-selected tracks:
- shifting groups of highlighted tracks (irrespective of the "group" style grouping) left and right in the mix window: this one is understandably not present, as the Ardour devs explained it's rather difficult to maintain something like this but if the code is written well and the inheritance tree makes sense then it shouldn't be difficult at all.
- ALL moves within a track should be reflected across highlighted groups. So far the only things which adheres to this is volume adjustment, but ONLY on the up and down keys. There are two issues here: 1. highlighting and selecting only affects one function across the highlighted tracks and it does so quite poorly, 2. functions that exist on directional controls should arguably exist on the mouse. To expand on #1, no other functions are affected when in multi-select. Mute, solo, bus assignment, EQ moves (which are also not affected globally when in groups)
- Global volume adjustment in a highlighted tracks (regardless of group) should be available on the mouse as well as the up/down keys. This functionality already exists, but it should also live on the mouse.
- Pressing delete would delete all tracks (delete all tracks from the menu currently does this, but menus should arguably be reflected in common keys, as mentioned above with the cut/paste example)
If it doesn't actually serve to affect a series of highlighted tracks, as very clearly indicated by the visual feedback of highlighting of a series of tracks, then it would perhaps be better to simply remove this visual feedback from the interface.
GROUPS AND HOW TO ISOLATE FUNCTIONS OF A SINGLE TRACK
This expands on the previous point, but with a more specific example of controls which can improve towards consistency. Grouping tracks means that muting, soloing, volume adjustment, and bus assignment, are all affected globally within that group. To isolate volume adjustment, one needs to press "Shift" (and Ctrl for a finer level of granularity) first to make the adjustment. This is a sane and rationale standard which unfortunately is not reflected across the other controls in a track strip. Every single function in a grouped track strip would benefit from following this design pattern i.e. all EQ moves should be global, isolating a single track's EQ knob would be preceded with a pressing of the "Shift" key, else all tracks in that group are affected by the same adjustment. This is not only good UX design, but also enforces good sound engineering practice.
DUPLICATING TRACKS
This one again can be mapped quite easily but arguably should be shipped as default to Ctrl+D. I could be wrong but I think most DAWs have this set as default.
INSERTING PLUGINS FROM MANAGER
Checking the box doesn't serve any major functionality. Right now I have to also double-click the plugin to then have it show up as being added. What could be better, is to have single-click of a plugin highlight that plugin so we can adjust the tags, then selecting the checkbox or double-click should add to the "Plugins to be connected" area.
DRAG SELECT PLUGINS FOR TAG RENAME
Say I have 30 reverb plugins, that's 30 clicks + 30 moves of the mouse to rename them all. Very tedious.
I would love to see adding a series of plugins by selecting a checkbox and then simply dragging down, over the checkboxes, through the list to select other checkboxes. For altering tags on a series of plugins, I would like to hold Shift and select. This is the common convention for all manner of programs with multi-select lists. Alternatively, removing the checkbox would be better, that way highlighting the plugins allows for changing of tags and when we hit "Insert Plugins" it simply adds the plugins that were highlighted.
-------------------------------------------
That's it for now, I'm sure I'll find more and add them to this thread. For now, if we can fix these issues it would go a long way to making Mixbus a better program than it already is!
I really love Mixbus, it saves me oodles of time and really narrows my focus on the first principles of mix engineering. I no longer have every plugin under the sun. I simply have eq, volume, and compression, with delay and verb... maybe 1 or 2 special effects for weird sounds. It has enhanced not only my abilities as a sound engineer, but also saved me time and improved my reputation for speed.
However, there are some minor things that are either inconsistent, require a right-click, or are just kind of fiddly, which I feel could be better served being accessed a little differently.
One of the most important aspects of good UX design, which I am sure you're aware, is that if the user asks "How do I do X?" they should be able to answer it with the first intuition. The instructor should be able to say "how do you think it should happen" and the student should be able to guess. This is not always achievable, but there are some very obvious examples of where it can be achieved with very little effort.
Beyond the intuitive, we also have a bedrock of common functions that most programs share in the modern era. An obvious example is Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V are cut and paste respectively. In this contrived example, there is an unknown trick which most people don't consider: common menu functions are reflected in shortcuts.
Mixbus seems to have gone most of the way towards completing this notion of intuitive controls, however overall it seems there could be some added benefit from viewing completely fresh and outside influence.
Before we start, I would also like to invite those responding to avoid the fallback of "but you can add that as a keyboard shortcut". Yes, some of these we can and that's great but also we shouldn't have to for obvious functionality. If people want to map away from the common conventions of UX design, then heck yes let them do that but the uninitiated should have a running start.
-------------------------------------------
So, to the examples...
The main ones are the delete button, renaming tracks, adding a plugin, showing post/pre-fade more obviously, actions affected by multi-selecting tracks, and a few others which I'll list below.
DELETE BUTTON
Ok so the first one is the delete button. There are times when it works and times when it doesn't, though one would reasonably expect it would work consistently regardless of context. For example, deleting a recorded clip? Works. Deleting a marker or an actual track? Doesn't work. The only way to achieve deletion in the latter two examples is to right-click and perform the ritual menu-dive. This is a very simple fix and would save my right hand from an impending RSI!
RENAMING TRACKS
Renaming tracks is done with a right-click, into the menu, left click Rename. This gets rather tedious, especially when renaming lots of tracks. A better way would be adding double-click functionality (left-click). I've tried to map this function Global -> Main -> Rename to "R" but it doesn't work when hovering over the track title, or even at all. Perhaps this is a bug but it's still worth mentioning here.
ADDING A PLUGIN AND VISUALIZING POST/PRE FADE
This is a great example where a fantastic control design is hampered by the visualization of the UX itself. Double-click to add a plugin? Yes please! The only problem is I want to add most, if not all, of my plugins/inserts as pre-fade (as I'm sure do most engineers). Where do I click now? Oh good, in a tiny area between the default Comp and Fader. This is beyond tedious and undoes the great design already in place. What would be an easy fix, is to have a pre-fade and post-fade default setting globally and then adjustments to toggle in the menu of each track (however, imo the global setting would be best served to ship as pre-fade). Most importantly, I would like to see the Fader module visually sit at the bottom of the dark space for pre-fade, and next to the Comp unit for post-fade. OR Simply having the Fader module sit in the middle of this dark space to allow for ultimate flexibility.
This would help to enhance the principle of first glance, which is absolutely imperative in UX design for industry tooling of this nature.
ACTIONS AFFECTED BY MULTI-SELECT
This one is very confusing and something I tried to bring up with the devs of Ardour, naively assuming feature requests wouldn't be accepted by Mixbux to retain the upstream-downstream codebase. Regardless, they were not receptive at all to the idea despite a rather lengthy and airtight point.
In short, there doesn't seem to be any obvious reason for multi-select and the presence of this disparity violates the idea of intuitive design in UX. There are functions which already exist on the directional pad which are not on the mouse, for no real reason.
One of the devs, I won't say who, tried to explain his philosophy of driving the user towards a certain workflow by enforcing certain usability traits. I agree with him on this for the most part, but he seems to have forgotten that by doing this to extremes it only cuts of the student before they have a chance to adjust and adds to the frustration of learning a new tool. Ultimately this means there can be no link towards the desired outcome which then renders the philosophy pointless. I couldn't get through to them and now my rather long post is just being ignored.
If something exists, it should serve a purpose and for something so common as multi-select it should be very obvious. Whether or not it actually does do something and I can't see simultaneously is beside and proves the point, as after a few clicks and plays I can't find any use for it anywhere.
As a user, I would assume the following functions from multi-selected tracks:
- shifting groups of highlighted tracks (irrespective of the "group" style grouping) left and right in the mix window: this one is understandably not present, as the Ardour devs explained it's rather difficult to maintain something like this but if the code is written well and the inheritance tree makes sense then it shouldn't be difficult at all.
- ALL moves within a track should be reflected across highlighted groups. So far the only things which adheres to this is volume adjustment, but ONLY on the up and down keys. There are two issues here: 1. highlighting and selecting only affects one function across the highlighted tracks and it does so quite poorly, 2. functions that exist on directional controls should arguably exist on the mouse. To expand on #1, no other functions are affected when in multi-select. Mute, solo, bus assignment, EQ moves (which are also not affected globally when in groups)
- Global volume adjustment in a highlighted tracks (regardless of group) should be available on the mouse as well as the up/down keys. This functionality already exists, but it should also live on the mouse.
- Pressing delete would delete all tracks (delete all tracks from the menu currently does this, but menus should arguably be reflected in common keys, as mentioned above with the cut/paste example)
If it doesn't actually serve to affect a series of highlighted tracks, as very clearly indicated by the visual feedback of highlighting of a series of tracks, then it would perhaps be better to simply remove this visual feedback from the interface.
GROUPS AND HOW TO ISOLATE FUNCTIONS OF A SINGLE TRACK
This expands on the previous point, but with a more specific example of controls which can improve towards consistency. Grouping tracks means that muting, soloing, volume adjustment, and bus assignment, are all affected globally within that group. To isolate volume adjustment, one needs to press "Shift" (and Ctrl for a finer level of granularity) first to make the adjustment. This is a sane and rationale standard which unfortunately is not reflected across the other controls in a track strip. Every single function in a grouped track strip would benefit from following this design pattern i.e. all EQ moves should be global, isolating a single track's EQ knob would be preceded with a pressing of the "Shift" key, else all tracks in that group are affected by the same adjustment. This is not only good UX design, but also enforces good sound engineering practice.
DUPLICATING TRACKS
This one again can be mapped quite easily but arguably should be shipped as default to Ctrl+D. I could be wrong but I think most DAWs have this set as default.
INSERTING PLUGINS FROM MANAGER
Checking the box doesn't serve any major functionality. Right now I have to also double-click the plugin to then have it show up as being added. What could be better, is to have single-click of a plugin highlight that plugin so we can adjust the tags, then selecting the checkbox or double-click should add to the "Plugins to be connected" area.
DRAG SELECT PLUGINS FOR TAG RENAME
Say I have 30 reverb plugins, that's 30 clicks + 30 moves of the mouse to rename them all. Very tedious.
I would love to see adding a series of plugins by selecting a checkbox and then simply dragging down, over the checkboxes, through the list to select other checkboxes. For altering tags on a series of plugins, I would like to hold Shift and select. This is the common convention for all manner of programs with multi-select lists. Alternatively, removing the checkbox would be better, that way highlighting the plugins allows for changing of tags and when we hit "Insert Plugins" it simply adds the plugins that were highlighted.
-------------------------------------------
That's it for now, I'm sure I'll find more and add them to this thread. For now, if we can fix these issues it would go a long way to making Mixbus a better program than it already is!
