More on iTunes 9's shoddy UI.
I had spent quite a bit of time reviewing and writing about the latest release of iTunes because the app is a complete nightmare that contains a great store. (My hope being that the app will adopt the store design in a forthcoming release). I didn’t finish the longer blog post because, as with most things I start writing, I felt interest in the topic waned before I had time to finish crafting my article. Am I wrong? Should I revisit my iTunes 9 article?
For now, back to the task at hand, in my March 4 tumbl I presented the iTunes 9 volume slider and wrote: ”So sick of looking at this every day. This is not a UI element, it’s an incomplete sketch.” Rohan commented, “Can you say some more please?”
Now, to be fair, the iTunes 9 volume slider functions as a volume slider is expected to function. That said, it is the best example among the awkwardly shaded UI elements in iTunes 9 and other haphazard UI decisions.
Because of the debossed style of of the already small speaker icons, and the gradient on the resulting recessed area, the speakers and soundwaves clumsily appear to be improperly rendered. This would be solved by eliminating the gradient, but it would be made all the better by forgoing the deboss altogether. It’s unnecessary visual noise on a UI element this small.
Worse than this is the lightly shaded recessed part of the slider track. Why is this some brighter “metal” than the surrounding area of the iTunes header? If anything, you’d think the designer’s inclination would be to go darker but, for simplicity sake, it should be the same colour as the header. As it is, it looks like someone forgot to colour in the slider, particularly with the dark grey surrounding area (the deboss shadow). This in particular is what my previous “incomplete sketch” comment was referring too.
At any rate, I could not possibly find this UI element any more visually offensive given the otherwise simple colour scheme. It really is a marvellous job of buggering up something where there wasn’t much room to do wrong.
