I decided to try out the iTunes application for managing podcast subscriptions, just for (what I thought would be) the ease of browsing their directory and subscribing, etc.
For a company that’s supposedly big on usability and UI design, their method for managing podcast subscriptions really bites. Doing a search (or browsing through categories) and then not being able to subscribe to multiple selections from the result set is really lame. As far as I can tell (and if this isn’t the case, please point it out to me) you have to click the “subscribe” button on ONE and only one of the listed items, which takes you away from that screen into your subscriptions. Then to get back to that list (since you have to subscribe one at a time) you have to navigate back into the podcast directory and rerun your search or browse to the same place again, over and over.
That is ridiculous.
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Well, I proved this post wrong this morning when I showed you by just clicking music store it goes back, which is the most sensible thing to do in that case no matter what you think. Since the podcast directory is more of a link to the podcast section and not a back button.
You just need to dumb down a little.
No, that *in no way* proves this post wrong.
The most intuitive option would be to allow you to select multiple items from the list (using checkboxes) and subscribe to all the ones you selected in one click.
A secondary, but still acceptable, solution would be if it didn’t navigate you away from the list you’re looking at when you click subscribe; allowing you to just keep clicking on subscribe on all the ones that you’d like to from the list.
A third, barely acceptable (from my standpoint) alternative would be to have a back button so that you could easily go back to the list you were on before you were taken away from it, even though that still means that you have to click back and forth between two pages multiple times to do something that should be made easy.
What you showed me was that clicking the “music store” link in the side menu effectively takes you back to where you were (like I described above in option #3), but without any obvious indication that it will do that.
This is completely unintuitive though; there is nothing to suggest that clicking a link on a navigation menu will take you back to a page (containing search results) that you were at before. Standard behavior for those types of links is to take you to the thing they describe (in this case, the music store home page), not preserving your state by going back if you were previously there.
In addition, it’s completely lame that when you run a search (or browse a category) it doesn’t distinguish which podcasts you’ve already subscribed to; it just gives you subscribe links on everything.
That last one isn’t as big of a problem as the first one (which I still think is a huge problem). Apple, a company known for producing good UIs, should be ashamed of the podcasting system in iTunes.
I realize their initial implementation (in 4.9?) was a rush job because they were so late in the game with supporting podcasting that they had to get SOMETHING out there, but now they’re on version 6.x, and the podcasting interface still sucks really bad.
Yeah, I wish the store and the client would work a little better with each other but the way I see it they are two different things even though they are bundled. That’s why we don’t see the features we want. But they could fix all of these easily.
I really don’t think your original complain can warrant unintuitive since clicking music store was intuitive to me and I’ve never had a problem or even thought of it until you brought it up.
No, I still think it’s pretty unintuitive.
Since the music store (as you said) is its own kind of pseudo-web site displayed within iTunes, it would make sense that the music store link on the left would take you to the music store home page, not to an existing session (with results) that has just been hidden.
If they wanted to show it in an intuitive way that mirrors how it actually works, they should use tabs, which would indicate that you have an active music store window or frame behind what you’re seeing on the screen when you’re looking at your library, for example.
To make it intuitive, it would have to be obvious to the new user that clicking on that “music store” side menu link would take you back to the search results you just saw. I don’t believe this would be obvious for the average user, because no side menus that you will find on the web (or in other applications, unless they are drawn as tabs) work that way.
To make matters worse, they have a link in the main window (under the subscribed podcasts) that says “Podcast Directory” where, (even if you were just browsing through the directory) it will take you back to the home page of the podcast directory, not your previous results. They could at least make this part consistent with the “music store” link, in that it would take you back to your populated list.
The bottom line is you shouldn’t have to go back and forth between two interfaces for every podcast within a list of podcasts that you want to subscribe to anyway. If you do a search for podcasts and want to subscribe to ten of the ones in the results, you will have to go through twenty screens in order to do that, where it should only be one.
So, like I said before, the issue of whether that “music store acting as a back button” functionality is intuitive (which we disagree on) is a minor issue that is only relevant because it is an only slightly helpful (yet still annoying) workaround to the main underlying usability problem.
First, like I said I’ve never had a problem nor has anyone else I’ve heard of.
Second, tabs would work for us but tabs aren’t very intuitive. Even the devs of firefox agree with that.
now you’re saying that the music store link should take you to the homepage no matter where you were before, that’s crazy. But then you say that the podcast link should take you to where you were. Are you just fishing?
The podcast directory is a link. A link takes you to a pre-distinguished page its not a button. The music store is more of a button, similar to a tab were you go back to where you were. I understand the reasoning and it’s not just because of it being Apple, it’s because it makes sense.
I don’t agree with your definition of usability here. Just because you had a problem doesn’t mean everything else is wrong. Sara isn’t very tech savvy but she has no problems with understanding that pressing the music store link takes you where you were. And that’s my definition: if it’s intuitive enough for you not to think about it it’s usable.
Sounds like your ego was bruised a little or maybe you’re just dragging it out because it’s Apple.
Ha, I got you to say that tabs are not intuitive!
But seriously, the whole business about pointing out the Podcast Directory “link” as opposed to the Music Store “button” is not “fishing”, it’s to illustrate the inconsistency in that design. Claiming that they’re different because one is a “button” and one is a “link” is flawed, because visually they both look exactly the same (text on a plain background with an icon to the side). The only reason you know they are different is because you found out they do different things after you clicked on them.
But like I said before, that’s not the main point of my criticism. My main problem is that even with the music store “link/button” allowing you to go back to the screen (that it shouldn’t have taken you away from in the first place) is that it requires going through 20 screens to subscribe to 10 podcasts from a single list when you should be able to do that all on one screen. That is a usability issue, and you even agreed with that on Sunday.
My ego isn’t bruised, and yes, I am dragging it out more because it’s Apple. Like I said in the initial post, Apple is known for doing great user interfaces, which is why it’s so hard to understand how they could screw up on something like this.
But even having to go back and forth could be reasonable since when you purchase something from the music store you want to go to where it’s downloaded and not having iTunes go to where it’s downloaded might confuse the dumb. But yes, subscribing shouldn’t be the same way for the mere fact that podcast listeners know where to go after you click subscribe.
As you stated, subscribing to podcasts is a totally different thing from purchasing music. Is it just hard for you to admit that Apple screwed up on this one?
Well as hard as it is for you to admit that Apple is superior to any other consumer OS.
But they didn’t do anything wrong they just could make it a lot better.
Whether Apple is superior to any other consumer OS is definitely up for debate. Lots of intelligent people would disagree strongly.
Very few people, on the other hand, would agree that you should have to go back and forth between screens twenty times to subscribe to a list of ten podcasts. It’s common sense to most average computer users; when you go to any web mail client you will see check boxes next to the list of emails that you can check and perform the same action on a group of items.
You might argue whether it’s “wrong” or not, which is just semantics, because they can do it however they want and not be “wrong” necessarily. It’s just that they didn’t do it very smart this time, that’s all I’m saying. I’m even pointing out that it’s abnormal considering their other work.
Like I said before, initially it was easy to blame it on the fact that they were rushing to add podcasting support to iTunes since they were so LATE to do it initially, but that was quite a while ago, and (as far as I’m concerned) they’ve had plenty of time to go back and polish it up; I’m just not sure why they haven’t.
Check out the dvd ” Pirates of Silcon Valley ” for an interesting view on Jobs and Gates.
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[...] One of Jared’s rants with iTunes and podcasting was fixed today. You can now just click on ’subscribe’ in the store without be redirected. There are a ton of other “improvments” as well. One example is the album artwork browsing and now iTunes will update your music with album art if you’d like automatically. [...]