Colour use in user interface

peteru · Post by **peteru** » Sun Sep 02, 2007 19:30

Just a generic comment for those that design the Beyonwiz user interface.

In Australia (and presumably most Western cultures) certain colours have traditionally been associated with well understood meanings. In particular:

GREEN: Green colour is used to represent approval, agreement, creation, birth or other positive meaning.

RED: Red colour often represents danger, refusal, disagreement, damage, injury or other negative meaning.

Thus, I would suggest that in the user interface design of the Beyonwiz, the red button is used for such actions as delete, cancel and remove. The green button should be used for actions such as add, create or confirm.

The association of yellow and blue is less strong, but convention is to use yellow for items that require more attention that those in blue.

DaveR · Post by **DaveR** » Sun Sep 02, 2007 20:46

Yep,
Red generally means Stop or Danger
Yellow generally means Warning or Caution
Green generally means Go or OK
Blue generally means Information

I would suggest the following:

***** UPDATED - 4-Sep-2007 *****

Popup > Recording Info
Green - Change File Name
Yellow - Lock/Unlock

Popup > Timer List
Red - Delete
Green - Add

Guide
Leave as it is

Keyboard
Leave as it is

Setup > Misc > Favorite
Red - Remove
Green - Add
Yellow - Rename
Blue - Move

Setup > Network > Setting
Green - Apply
Yellow - Status

Setup > Config > A/V Output
Yellow - EDID Detail

File Player
Red - Delete
Green - Add to Playlist
Yellow - Toggle Lock
Blue - Select

File Player > Network
Red - Clear All PC
Green - Find PC
Yellow - Scan

File Player > Network > OK
Green - Add to Playlist
Blue - Select

Favorite Movie/Music/Photo
Red - Delete
Blue - Select

DaveR · Post by **DaveR** » Sun Sep 02, 2007 21:55

Max, this should be added to the wishlist, IMHO.

madmax · Post by **madmax** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 00:17

Dave? wrote:Max, this should be added to the wishlist, IMHO.

Added to wish list, "User interface" section, thanks. You might want to edit your post above to add the functions for "Add to Playlist" etc. in File Player, I guess Green = add, Red = delete and either Yellow or Blue = select, and check if there are any other screens you might have missed.

Martyn · Post by **Martyn** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 09:08

Won't this mean the manual needs to be re-written....

Can I suggest that an option is added (somewhere) so that you have the choice of two button assignments....Standard (the one we have now) and Western (the suggested layout) that way the manual doesn't need to be redone.

Units still shipped "as is" and then simply provide an additional page if and when the option is made available.

Martyn

DaveR · Post by **DaveR** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 20:25

Martyn wrote:Won't this mean the manual needs to be re-written....

The manual is already being rewritten to include all the recent and soon-to-be-added changes and additions.

As it is now the original hard copy manual is not 100% correct if using the more recent firmware. Manuals are often updated, as new firmware is released.

Most people don't manuals. They just look at the info on the screen to decide what button to press.

DaveR · Post by **DaveR** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 21:43

madmax wrote:
Dave? wrote:Max, this should be added to the wishlist, IMHO.
Added to wish list, "User interface" section, thanks.

Thanks. BTW you could have linked directly to my post. Hover over the little white 'page' icon to left of 'Posted: blah blah' and right-click then select copy link.

madmax wrote:You might want to edit your post above to add the functions for "Add to Playlist" etc. in File Player, I guess Green = add, Red = delete and either Yellow or Blue = select, and check if there are any other screens you might have missed.

Will do.

I notice there's no mention in the wishlist about recovering after a blackout. As it is now it is very close to perfect, but it just needs to boot up after a blackout so it can resume recording - which it already does if you turn it on after a blackout (except for once only timers). And ideally it should then return to the state it was in before the blackout.

There's also a couple of wishes I disagree with, in part mostly. Like changing 'Special Lock' to 'Special Characters'. It is a 'Lock' as in Num Lock, Cap Lock and Scroll Lock. So it could be Char Lock or... Special Lock... which brings us back to where it is now. But it's probably so trivial that it doesn't even rate enough to be included on the wish list. The wish list is growing too big and needs to have trivial items like this removed to par it down to a managable size.

I was thinking that the bugs possibly should have similiar items grouped together - like DVD bugs all together. And Codec bugs all together. And Timer bugs all together etc.

madmax · Post by **madmax** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 11:28

Link fixed.

I thought 13(a) covered the whole blackout thing. Have I missed something?

jpp · Post by **jpp** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 14:45

madmax wrote:Link fixed.

I thought 13(a) covered the whole blackout thing. Have I missed something?

I think Dave wants it put under the Bugs catagory, rather than in the Wishlist catagory. I'd agree with him

.

jackmarshall · Post by **jackmarshall** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 16:09

Dave? wrote: There's also a couple of wishes I disagree with, in part mostly. Like changing 'Special Lock' to 'Special Characters'. It is a 'Lock' as in Num Lock, Cap Lock and Scroll Lock. So it could be Char Lock or... Special Lock... which brings us back to where it is now. But it's probably so trivial that it doesn't even rate enough to be included on the wish list. The wish list is growing too big and needs to have trivial items like this removed to par it down to a managable size.

I think this is a good one - trivial maybe, but it should be as trivial to fix. Special lock is a very obscure reference unless you work heavily with computers (the point of this box is you shouldn't need to). I think we have to accept that the list will always be to long and trust BW to make the intelligent decisions. All we do is provide suggestions. I have always been nervous about one person controling 'the wishlist' but Madmax seems to be doing an excellent job because he has taken the role of collating, rather than judging suggestions.

Char Lock would be OK but Special Characters is my preference.

IanSav · Post by **IanSav** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 16:35

Hi Jackmarshall,

I am glad that you have noticed the bug / wish lists are now huge and well beyond the ability of the Beyonwiz engineers to completely address.

We will have to see how many items they can work on for every update.

Regards,
Ian.

madmax · Post by **madmax** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 16:51

Yes the wish list is big, but growth has almost stopped now. In fact I expect the list will begin to shrink now, starting with the next firmware. Won't that be nice.....!!

DaveR · Post by **DaveR** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 21:01

jackmarshall wrote:Char Lock would be OK but Special Characters is my preference.

I also like Special Characters... but it just won't fit. I'd prefer to keep with the 'Lock' theme because we already have Caps Lock, and it is a Lock.

I think it should be either Chars Lock or Special Chars.

DaveR · Post by **DaveR** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 21:06

madmax wrote:I thought 13(a) covered the whole blackout thing. Have I missed something?

No, I missed this. Though it doens't fully cover what I was referring to (but we'll discuss that in the beta forum). Or you can perform some 'blackout' tests while it's recording weekly and once timers to see for yourself how it behaves currently.

Paranoid666au · Post by **Paranoid666au** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 00:45

Don't want to be a downer but it it would take some readjusting. I mean, using green to delete then all of a sudden it's red.

Pity they didn't pay more attention to the user interface to begin with.

grunta · Post by **grunta** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 21:34

"Broken record mode again"

a major part of the wish list especially in the area of User interface would be fixed within weeks if there was an open API

then the BW engineers would only have to address "faults"

IanSav · Post by **IanSav** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 10:22

Hi Grunta,

grunta wrote:"Broken record mode again"

a major part of the wish list especially in the area of User interface would be fixed within weeks if there was an open API

then the BW engineers would only have to address "faults"

The Beyonwiz engineers have already informed us that the current firmware code is not yet refined enough and in a condition that will support an API. They will look at the API option again when they have finished adding the features they want to add and have had a chance to revisit and tidy up the code.

Regards,
Ian.

Colour use in user interface

Colour use in user interface

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