[mythtv] [mythtv-commits] Ticket #1635: LiveTV uses UP to go up the channel list, Guide uses DOWN.

Steven Adeff adeffs.mythtv at gmail.com
Wed Apr 5 18:34:42 UTC 2006


On 05 Apr 2006 13:44:59 -0400, Greg Stark <gsstark at mit.edu> wrote:
> "Steven Adeff" <adeffs.mythtv at gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Now you've done it. It's not a mistake, its a carefully made decision
> > based on existing interaction patterns. The grid is like looking at a
> > sheet of paper, Western langauges read left to right, top to bottom,
> > so the grid is designed to work like this. While watching TV on the
> > other hand, going up a channel number uses the "up" direction since it
> > is an increase in the number. Your method is backwards my friend ;-)
>
> Ok, you have two different rationales for two different behaviours. Normally
> the best course of action is to pick the one that's the most important. Not to
> make it behave one way sometimes and another way other times.

no, same rational applied to two different scenarios. The basis for my
rational is to not force the user to learn a new paradigm, use what
the user knows and is used to from other contexts in life.

The channel grid, to the average person is like a sheet of information
written on a peice of paper. The sheet has channels, sorted verticaly
by channel and horizontally by time. Channel number is sorted top to
bottom using standard numerical sequence, time is sorted left to right
using standard numerical sequence. The top to bottom, left to right
behaviour is based on the fact that this is the direction in which we
read.


Things change though when watching live tv. Here our peice of paper
paradigm no longer fits. What we are doing now is number association.
We are watching channel 23. We want to watch channel 67. So we want to
go Up in channel number, thus we hit "channel up". Now we're watching
channel 67. We want to watch channel 43. So we now want to go Down in
channel number, thus we hit "channel down". Things get really screwed
up when I'm on channel 856 watching Gilmore Girls with the g/f and I
want to switch to ESPN which is on channel 43iirc, but instead of
going down, I actually want to go up, because the distance between 856
and 43 on the order of channels is shorter in that direction.
AHHH!!!...

--
Steve


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