We all like YouTube and we use it daily.
But, let me tell you a bit about user interface engineering. YouTube has recently added a few more features, like switching video sizes, or some time ago: updated personal channels.
First of all, I use the latest Firefox, and I do have an account on YouTube. Now, let me explain:
- The thing with the volume control… argh!
If you want to change the volume quickly, you may possibly move your mouse over the video resize entries (360p, 480p etc.). If this happens, a small menu will popup where you can select the video size (see Screenshot 1, or try out yourself). Now, if you want to change the volume but hovered over the video resize menu just milliseconds ago, the volume control popup is hidden under the resize menu for about 300ms. You have to precisely move the mouse around, if you do not want to wait to adjust the volume.
Screenshot 1
This is crap, in several aspects: It irritates very much the handling, if you always activate unwanted things. Second, a right hander will move his mouse possibly from the right side of the screen (quicklist, related videos etc.) to the left. This increases the chance to hit that menu. Third, even though its a very good feature and I appreciate it very much, it could be more hidden and does not need a mouseover menu. Solution: Change it to a normal click menu.
- The thing with the playlists… – and the quicklist
Ever visited a persons video channel and tried to play the whole channel? Nope, not working. Autoplay of a playlist in some channel? Not possible. You have to click on every single video. Hah, you might say, just add the videos one by one to the quicklist. Take a look at Screenshot 2 or try for yourself.
Screenshot 2 (click for full size):
Lower red circle: missing "(+)" add to quicklist feature.
Upper red cricle: missing playlist features.Oops.. no options available! Again! You can’t add videos from a channel to your quicklist! How the hell could they miss out this feature? You have to click every single video, or open them in another tab. (Here, we come to point number three. See below.) Solution: Add these little features, quick!
- Autoplaying videos
If you open a video, why does it start immediately? If you have three or more tabs open, all videos will start and sounds will overlap (plus, videos will probably raise CPU usage to 100%), and you have to first stop each video and then watch them one by one. Oh, did I yet say YouTube has a nice quicklist feature (which I use whereever I can)? They should first fix #2 and then disable autoplaying. This also has the advantage of a bigger prebuffer – not everyone has a good internet connection. Solution: disable autoplaying - Clicking on the YouTube logo
I do it quick: Try it out yourself. Watch a video, and decide to open the YouTube start page in a new tab. It will open in the same window, even if you pressed Shift or Ctrl to open it in a new window, or in a new tab – thus, unintentionally stopping the current video and taking you to the start page. Fail
. You need to go back to watch the rest of the video and then click the “Home” text link. Solution: Remove that JavaScript href link please and change it to a normal link! - other things…
not that important, but… why has YouTube removed the personal stats “number of videos watched: …”? Its a pity YouTube removed that, because I think its an interesting fact, to see how much videos you watched over the time. I mean, it gets logged anyway, the feature was there, so why is it gone? Other users also noticed this, try typing “videos watched” in google and see the suggestions. So this is a topic to think about. Solution: add it again and make a handful users happy!
[*Update* There might be a correlation between this behaviour and the CPU power. A few friends reported, that they did not have this behaviour, while others acknowledge it. I own an AMD 3000+ single core CPU (overclocked to 2,3ghz). You're welcome to write a comment if you also experience this behaviour, and what CPU you own]
I hope YouTube will open their eyes, see the users needs and change the webseite inteaction. If this stuff continues, they will make good things worse. I’d also appreciate your comments about that topic. Did you experience the same or similar problems? Anything to add?
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