On Mar 2, 2004, at 1:10 AM, doggiebox-request@lists.zygoat.ca wrote:

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I find this confounding User Interface very frustrating. It's killed my inspiration for today.

I suspect that you have found this in particular because you have become very accustomed to the 1.0 style of doing things, and have jumped right in to 1.1 without a full awareness of the design changes. This is not a criticism of you at all. It is more a testament to the lack of present documentation, and the fact that I have thrown out the 1.1 beta series to you folks to play with as it develops.

This might be the case, but could be avoided by more human mapping techniques. I am an Interactive/Industrial Designer, and I feel very strongly about visual cues enabling people to quickly rationalize novel items, such as the new user interface. I would highly suggest to push these ideas into your product to greatly reduce confusion. The problem lies in the fact that the interface buttons, menu items etc afford a particular action, and the more actions hidden/ unannounced to new users, or even seasoned users, the more difficult it is. Visual cues (shapes of buttons and color, highlight shades of color (that already exists) and other things, even audible cues can greatly reduce confusion, and then you can get as novel as you want with the interface, because people will have the ability to rationalize the interface intuitively. You have to merge the pre-existing knowledge people have of computer interfaces, and blend that with novelty, and you have to understand the psychology of designing for us stupid humans, and the next thing you know, it's a perfect synthesis. I know I am just a preachy dude, and I will not say another word about the interface unless I am called upon, but check out Donald A. Norman's book, "the design of everyday things". It's short and sweet, and has given me the ability to rationalize things previously ill-defined in human interface design. I think you all are ON THE RIGHT TRACK with the shapes of the drum instruments, etc, but push it even farther, get crazy! get nuts! make doggie box the coolest app for os x! WIN AWARDS! hahah alright peace. mike listrom