[HN Gopher] The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)
        
       Author : andsoitis
       Score  : 221 points
       Date   : 2026-03-18 10:22 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (uxdesign.cc)
 (TXT) w3m dump (uxdesign.cc)
        
       | jibal wrote:
       | I just want to be able to get to 11.
        
         | pseudohadamard wrote:
         | Here you go, https://store.thodio.com/products/new-anodized-
         | aluminum-a-bo...
        
           | jibal wrote:
           | whoosh
        
             | pseudohadamard wrote:
             | Is that self-referential? I knew exactly what the OP was
             | asking.
        
               | jibal wrote:
               | Whoosh again. I'm the OP in this case.
        
               | pseudohadamard wrote:
               | Ah, right, so you're someone who likes saying whoosh a
               | lot. Feel free to let rip.
        
               | jibal wrote:
               | You could try reading the TFA, and understanding that my
               | comment was a joke (referring to Spinal Tap, of course)
               | about those UIs, not a request for a knob with 11
               | divisions. Your knobs inspired by Spinal Tap have nothing
               | to do with "the worst volume control UI in the world",
               | about which the only thing I'm (jokily) concerned is
               | whether they go up to 11, implying that having a horrible
               | UI isn't relevant to me, only going up to 11 is ... this
               | completely went over your head and I suspect that it
               | still does. So the whoosh is because you completely
               | missed what was going on here, and the second whoosh is
               | because you missed the fact that I was the very person
               | whose comment you responded to who called out your
               | completely point-missing response with "whoosh".
               | 
               | Over and out. I won't respond again.
        
               | Rexxar wrote:
               | Did you have envisioned the possibility that your were
               | the one that have missed other people joke ?
        
             | socalgal2 wrote:
             | How is it whoosh? Seemed exactly like what you where
             | referencing. Knobs marked by up to 11 inspired by the same
             | source, Spinal Tap.
        
               | jibal wrote:
               | You could try reading the TFA, and understanding that my
               | comment was a joke (referring to Spinal Tap, of course)
               | about those UIs, not a request for a knob with 11
               | divisions. pseudohadamard's knobs inspired by Spinal Tap
               | have nothing to do with "the worst volume control UI in
               | the world", about which the only thing I'm (jokily)
               | concerned is whether they go up to 11, implying that
               | having a horrible UI isn't relevant to me, only going up
               | to 11 is ... this completely went over your and his head
               | and I suspect that it still does. So the whoosh is
               | because he completely missed what was going on here, and
               | the second whoosh is because he missed the fact that I
               | was the very person whose comment he responded to who
               | called out his completely point-missing response with
               | "whoosh".
               | 
               | Over and out. I won't respond again.
        
         | bigfishrunning wrote:
         | Just 1 more loud
        
         | socalgal2 wrote:
         | I just want it to be able to be set between 0 and 1, because on
         | iPhone                   0 = off         1 = 30% volume
         | 10 = 100% volume
         | 
         | You are not allowed to set it between 0 and 1.
         | 
         | + Mud flaps
        
       | sph wrote:
       | Beautiful, forgot about this one. The precursor to some of
       | neal.fun's creations.
       | 
       | - https://neal.fun/not-a-robot/
       | 
       | - https://neal.fun/password-game/
        
       | aa-jv wrote:
       | I once worked for a mainstream headphone manufacturer who added a
       | volume control to a product that was so widely despised that a
       | special firmware release had to be done to disable it completely,
       | or else the returns bin would overflow almost overnight ..
       | 
       | So this had me chuckling so hard, having worked professionally in
       | the pro audio world for decades - I can say that some of these
       | 'solutions' would actually be accepted in certain market segments
       | .. I especially love the designs which use a built-in
       | accelerometer.
       | 
       | It seems the good ol' knob is not going anywhere any time soon.
        
       | sillywalk wrote:
       | I'd add the volume control for Quicktime 4. A dial that you had
       | to use a mouse to use.
       | 
       | http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtime.htm
       | 
       | EDIT:
       | 
       | previously
       | 
       | 763 points by yankcrime on July 13, 2021 | hide | past | favorite
       | | 477 comments
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27819384
        
         | pseudohadamard wrote:
         | Ah yes, skeuomorphic design, where you take something that's a
         | physical artefact of the hardware and force-fit it onto an
         | utterly different device on which it makes no sense whatsoever.
        
           | ndr42 wrote:
           | I agree, but boy does it look beautiful!
        
         | flyinghamster wrote:
         | And the silly thing is, as ridiculous as they are for mouse
         | click/drag or touch use, those kind of dial controls are
         | actually reasonable when coupled to a scroll wheel (like you
         | can do in GNURadio). But Apple has never wavered from "one
         | mouse button and nothing else is good enough for everybody,"
         | and scroll wheels aren't really an option for a touch
         | interface.
        
       | nico wrote:
       | Every now and then I get these hilarious volume control videos on
       | TikTok. They show the most horrible ways for doing volume control
       | 
       | One example (you need to play tic tac toe to set the volume)
       | https://www.tiktok.com/@vivancodes/video/7612511893340671240
       | 
       | It seems like that account has quite a few more too
        
         | sanjosanjo wrote:
         | Tic Tac Toe is hilarious
        
           | gzread wrote:
           | Since it's on TikTok it should be renamed Tik Tok Toe
        
       | RiskScore wrote:
       | I've seen this same thing like 100 times. I do not mind.
        
       | harvey9 wrote:
       | I liked the one where you make a noise at the level you want to
       | set the volume.
        
         | efebarlas wrote:
         | I feel like that one's actually pretty good, why should the ear
         | calibrate to the device when it can be vice versa?
        
       | semolino wrote:
       | How about the most depraved volume control design of all: the
       | actual reddit web video player (at least the embedded player on
       | old.reddit)?
       | 
       | The slider is hidden by default. Hovering the volume icon makes
       | the slider appear. There is margin between the icon and slider,
       | though, so you have to quickly "zip" your mouse across this
       | gap/chasm before the slider disappears. If you make it over to
       | the slider in time, your hover then preserves its visibility.
       | 
       | I know for sure the devs at Conde ain't dogfoodin' on _that_
       | interface anymore!
        
         | db48x wrote:
         | That's actually a really common implementation failure across
         | all platforms. It crops up again and again, in virtually every
         | new thing that people implement. It's very common to see this
         | problem when you activate a submenu of a menu, and want to move
         | the mouse diagonally to pick some item from the submenu.
        
           | fainpul wrote:
           | https://www.nngroup.com/articles/steering-law/
        
             | fdghrtbrt wrote:
             | Wow thanks for that.
        
             | basilikum wrote:
             | "Your request has been blocked..." That's a new 403 page.
             | 
             | If anyone has the same problem: https://web.archive.org/web
             | /20260218142023/https://www.nngro...
        
           | vntok wrote:
           | See here for how Amazon's mega menu was designed around this
           | problem:
           | 
           | https://bjk5.com/post/44698559168/breaking-down-amazons-
           | mega...
        
             | robinsonb5 wrote:
             | It's slightly irritating to see Amazon get credit for that,
             | when Bruce Tognazzini used that same solution 40 years ago
             | when working on the classic MacOS interface!
             | 
             | (Apple forgot about it again for OS X, but that's a
             | different story.)
        
               | sh4rks wrote:
               | From the article:
               | 
               | > I'm sure this problem was solved years and years ago,
               | forgotten, rediscovered, solved again, forgotten,
               | rediscovered, solved again.
        
               | fainpul wrote:
               | From the NN/g article:
               | 
               | "older versions of MacOS featured a menu designed by NN/g
               | principal Bruce Tognazzini; that menu did not exhibit
               | this behavior, but instead, used a vector-based
               | triangular buffer to allow users to move diagonally.
               | Unfortunately, in the years since, Apple has reverted
               | this excellent bit of interaction design."
               | 
               | But I'm on macOS 15 and the menus seem to behave that way
               | (the good way). Did they re-implement it?
        
               | robinsonb5 wrote:
               | Yes, they did eventually. If I'm understanding correctly,
               | the original design used a simple funnel shape with 45
               | degree sides (suitable for the resource-limited systems
               | of the day), and when they eventually re-implemented it
               | they used a funnel defined by the left hand corners of
               | the submenu, as per the Amazon design. (See the large
               | animgif halfway down
               | https://thomaspark.co/2011/10/making-menus-escapable/ )
        
       | Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
       | > Should is interesting because of its subjectiveness. It's a
       | question that only makes sense to be asked in first person. And
       | you have to know about much more than just design to be able to
       | answer it -- you have to understand about business, technology,
       | culture, people. Answering the should question is a skill you
       | only get after many, many years answering questions alike.
       | 
       | I wish more front-end designers would consider "should" more
       | often.
       | 
       | "Oh, we can make the scrollbars in our web page auto-hide so PC
       | users get the same experience as Mac users"
       | 
       | But should you?
       | 
       | No. Because one of the reasons I use a PC is because auto-hiding
       | scrollbars on a desktop/laptop is a bug, not a feature, and I
       | disabled that bug while I had a Mac because it's annoying.
       | 
       | "Oh, we can implement smooth scrolling in JavaScript!"
       | 
       | But should you?
       | 
       | No. Because browsers _already do it_. And your implementation
       | will fail on at least one browser and cause scrolling to just be
       | fucked up. If a user has disabled smooth scrolling, it 's
       | probably for a reason. Don't force it back on.
       | 
       | "We can create our own implementation of a drop-down box"
       | 
       | But should you?
       | 
       | No. You're reducing accessibility for literally zero gain. I hate
       | when I'm entering my address, tabbing through the fields, reach
       | the State, and pressing O then R doesn't bring me to "Oregon" or
       | "OR", and instead brings me to Rhode Island. Side note: The order
       | of entering an address is street address, city, state, zip code.
       | If your form order is any different, you're a madman.
        
         | mananaysiempre wrote:
         | > The order of entering an address is street address, city,
         | state, zip code.
         | 
         | In the US. Most of Europe uses street address; postcode,
         | settlement and optionally province; country. There are still
         | enough occasional warts that you shouldn't dictate the structre
         | of the second line, though: e.g. in France you'll usually see
         | things like "75005 Paris" but large institutions that get
         | separate deliveries may list addresses like "75231 Paris CEDEX
         | 05", where everything but "Paris" is a postcode-like routing
         | instruction. Unless you definitely, absolutely know better,
         | just let people type in whatever postal label they want.
        
           | terribleperson wrote:
           | This feels like the physical equivalent of email validation,
           | though it's harder to properly validate.
           | 
           | Similar to email validation, I've definitely seen people get
           | bit (or, well, their customers getting bit) by people making
           | untrue assumptions about the acceptable form of an address.
           | See: a number of products that can't be ordered for USPS
           | General Delivery simply because the address form won't allow
           | it.
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | I have mixed opinions on this one. I appreciate the auto
           | populating of City/State when you first enter the Zip. By
           | doing that first, the suggestions of typing in address/street
           | could be a much more accurate list as you've already filtered
           | by state/city. The ones that come up with options from other
           | states when I type in 1234 Main St will give me a list of
           | pretty much every state/city in the country.
        
         | vintagedave wrote:
         | Yes -- so much friction is introduced by redesigning when there
         | should be refinement at most. Or doing nothing at all.
         | 
         | It takes wisdom to do that, and it doesn't justify a salary. So
         | we get experimented upon by UX designers at every company.
         | 
         | While the volume controls are fun, at this stage in the thread
         | I'm struck by how few people have got to the point of the
         | article at the end: the "should" question.
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | > "Oh, we can make the scrollbars in our web page auto-hide so
         | PC users get the same experience as Mac users"
         | 
         | That's interesting. Our UI has scroll bars for sub-panels. On
         | my Mac in FF, the scroll bar is always visible when there is
         | overflow. Same screen on a co-worker's Chrome has the
         | autohiding scroll bars even when there is overflow. So it feels
         | more like a Chrome issue than a Windows issue, but I guess at
         | this point in time we just assume everyone is using Chrome.
        
         | pbhjpbhj wrote:
         | >"We can create our own implementation of a drop-down box"
         | 
         | Have been using MS "Dynamics" and wanted to add custom styling
         | as a user. Even small lists/tables have all the off-screen
         | elements destroyed so you can't copy stuff from the page, but
         | also you might have to scroll things into view before they get
         | styled (:has gets broken).
         | 
         | They re-implement tables as a swamp of elements which now lack
         | semantic relationships.
         | 
         | They give the same elements random ids, they're non-
         | deterministic. You can only really style by hierarchy, but for
         | every property they seem to add at least one new element.
         | 
         | Everything about it is slow and cumbersome, and no wonder a
         | simple table has hundreds of elements.
         | 
         | It's so Microsoft, the "don't bake your own widgets" taken to
         | the n-th degree.
        
       | himata4113 wrote:
       | Have seen this every single time, the iPhone one is my favorite.
       | If you know, you know.
        
         | busymom0 wrote:
         | Can you explain that one?
        
           | himata4113 wrote:
           | in early versions of iOS apple used additional logic to
           | "understand" what the user wanted instead of just doing what
           | the user wanted.
           | 
           | Also it wasn't linear, it was more of a smiley face of
           | sensitivity
        
       | socalgal2 wrote:
       | I get it's not the same thing but I wish iOS had lower volume
       | settings. As it is, if 100% is max volume then the difference
       | between 0 and unit above 0 on iPhones is about 30% volume. Like,
       | in the middle of the night when everything is quiet, if I was the
       | set it on the lowest setting and make some game sounds I could
       | hear it 2 rooms away with doors open. But, Apple decided you
       | don't need to set it below 30%. Maybe they're trying to force you
       | to buy Airpods
        
         | shreddit wrote:
         | The same with brightness. I have a shortcut to lower the white
         | point because the lowest brightness level is still far to
         | bright in complete darkness.
        
           | m463 wrote:
           | brightness should go the other way too.
           | 
           | for example I read kindle books on my phone in dark mode
           | (white text on a black background). Having the brightness all
           | the way up isn't fully bright white text, it is more like
           | brightish grey.
           | 
           | To get bright text to read in bright environments, I set the
           | kindle app to black text on white background, then use
           | accessibility to invert colors. I get noticeably brighter
           | text on a black background.
        
           | hombre_fatal wrote:
           | My gen1 kindle backlight is so bright at the lowest level
           | that I angle it away from me to read at night.
           | 
           | Just typing this out makes me realize I should get a
           | different ereader than wait for it to die since it's clearly
           | never going to die. It's been like 15 years
        
           | bdavbdav wrote:
           | There's an accessibility option in iOS to reduce white point
           | that can be mapped
        
         | reaperducer wrote:
         | _the difference between 0 and unit above 0 on iPhones is about
         | 30% volume._
         | 
         | I have found that when playing audio to a HomePod, pressing
         | Volume Up on the phone increases the volume by 1.
         | 
         | But if you immediately press Volume Down, it goes down by 0.5.
         | So, with two button presses you can get the half-step increase
         | you wanted in the first place.
         | 
         | It's like adding "a little" to a volume change command with
         | Siri.                 "Siri, turn the volume up a little" turns
         | the volume up 0.5.            "Siri, turn the volume up" turns
         | the volume up one.              "Siri, turn the volume up a
         | lot" turns the volume up two.
         | 
         | In macOS, there used to be a modifier key to have the volume
         | change in half-steps, too, but I've forgotten what it is.
         | 
         | I think the only place that Apple has done a good job with
         | volume controls is the AirPods Max. But even there, I'd like
         | more granularity at the low end.
        
         | hedora wrote:
         | It definitely deserves a place on the list.
         | 
         | In fact, it's the worst of the worst, since it's just plausible
         | looking enough to be the only option on over a billion devices.
         | 
         | On top of that, the EU passed a bill to make them fix it, and
         | they... didn't. If you have headphones that are too loud at
         | 'unit above zero', and use the volume limiter in the device
         | safety section to set it to a reasonable level, it just
         | completely mutes the headphones.
         | 
         | This isn't a hardware issue. Bluetooth devices have an integer
         | volume setting, and the "unit above zero" setting is definitely
         | not '1' on iOS like it is on android.
         | 
         | I've hit this problem with 100% of the non-apple headphones
         | I've used.
        
         | userbinator wrote:
         | I experienced the same "muted, TOO LOUD" when I bought some
         | very sensitive IEMs, but fortunately I have a rooted Android
         | where I can customise the volume control curve, so I moved more
         | of the steps down towards the lower end of the DAC range and
         | made the loudest just a little beyond "threshold of pain".
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | That would be interesting to have the volume bars logarithmic
         | instead of linear.
         | 
         | The focus ring on manual cinema camera lenses are like this
         | where there is 270deg or rotation from near to infinity giving
         | a human plenty of room to move while AF lenses only have 90deg.
         | The distances are much smaller and harder to get smooth focus
         | pulls and feels much more linear. So yeah, not the same, but
         | similar-ish in that there's not enough action in the sweet spot
         | and too much in extremes
        
         | IntrepidPig wrote:
         | If you long press the volume bar in control center then it
         | opens a larger version you can drag to adjust more precisely.
        
           | socalgal2 wrote:
           | You are my hero! Does this get added to the list of worst
           | controls though since it's so buried?
        
             | ggsp wrote:
             | It's already included in the list, between the pricing UI
             | and the Windows XP disks
        
             | fgd135 wrote:
             | You can also just drag directly on the slider that appears
             | on the side of the screen when you press the volume buttons
        
               | HelenePhisher wrote:
               | Lovely. Never would have thought about that. Thank you!
        
           | Obscurity4340 wrote:
           | Also if you pull down the today center or whatever it is on
           | iOS, it has a music player interface you can drag the volume
           | there too
        
         | oneeyedpigeon wrote:
         | I upvoted you - at least, I hope I did. HN's vote buttons have
         | such poor UX that a) it's difficult to hit the right button b)
         | it's impossible to know, after doing so, whether you even hit
         | the right button!
        
           | shric wrote:
           | There is either an unvote or undown option once you've hit
           | one
        
             | oneeyedpigeon wrote:
             | Ah, thanks. That confirms I upvoted, but I think "vote" is
             | a silly verb to use to convey the opposite of "down"!
        
               | rimbo789 wrote:
               | I'd say 60% of the time I go to vote I click a users name
               | instead when I'm on mobile.
        
             | kibwen wrote:
             | Nowadays there is. For the first ten years or so, you just
             | had to shrug and apologize to the commenter for
             | accidentally and irrevocably downvoting them.
        
             | da_chicken wrote:
             | That's still a bad UI.
             | 
             | But at this point I think the bad UX on Hacker News has to
             | be an intentional joke.
        
           | Obscurity4340 wrote:
           | HACK is a fantastic reader, highly recommended
        
           | wkjagt wrote:
           | On my phone I always zoom in on the vote buttons as far as it
           | will let me so each is as big as my thumb.
        
         | kakacik wrote:
         | I face the same situation on Android, there is no way to play
         | music really quiet on Sennheiser TW4. Isn't this also plugs
         | manufacturer's fault? (not valid for apple obviously)
        
           | soopypoos wrote:
           | "Disable absolute volume" setting (in Developer options)
           | might help. It separates the phone volume control from the
           | headphones volume control so it's like a preamp.
        
         | roelschroeven wrote:
         | This is an issue in many audio players. Maybe not as bad as in
         | iOS (I don't know, can't compare), but the steps when the
         | volume is low are nearly always too large. I like to play audio
         | on low volumes, especially in quiet environments, and it seems
         | designers/developers don't cater to that use case. One step is
         | too low are even complete silent, one step louder is too loud.
        
           | hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
           | Yeah, the default Android volume control had (has?) the same
           | problem. I remember when I got an early Pixel model that I
           | thought there wasn't a low enough volume - this issue was
           | filed in 2015 and is still marked as open:
           | https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/37035441
        
       | c4pt0r wrote:
       | i know they will have alsamixer in this list.
        
       | Dwedit wrote:
       | Is there a list of these that are actually in real shipped
       | software and not created as a joke?
        
       | neya wrote:
       | I like how towards the end they added the vanilla Apple mission
       | control UI in there - which doesn't have any volume control at
       | all just to prove their point. That really caught me off-guard
       | and was funny af.
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | how does it have no control? you just pull it up or down
         | accordingly. i appreciate the joke that it's not a great
         | design, but to say "doesn't have any volume control at all" is
         | an odd thing to say.
        
           | lostlogin wrote:
           | What would be better?
           | 
           | When I search the Android UI, it looks very similar, but
           | horizontal.
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | I was just saying it was funny that they just used the in
             | real life used screen as their design of the worst thing
             | they could come up with, especially as Apple touts itself
             | as great at design.
             | 
             | As others have said, if they made it a non-linear scale so
             | that there is more room between the lower value and less as
             | it approached the max settings.
             | 
             | However, it is at least functional opposed to the person
             | that I replied suggested it wasn't.
        
       | terribleperson wrote:
       | How about one where the first click sets your volume to max, and
       | then pops up a dialogue to subscribe to a newsletter or sign up
       | for an account? I've never seen such an atrocity, but I could see
       | one plausibly being developed.
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | The SaaS subscription one fulfilled the same sense for me.
         | 
         | To be fair, Netflix' cheapest subscription option deliberately
         | says that you will not be getting the best audio options
         | including audio levels that are not the same between content.
         | They clearly have the better audio for the higher tiers, so
         | they are deliberately borking things.
        
         | svelle wrote:
         | That would be bandcamp, where the free/preview player doesn't
         | have a volume control but the library player does.
        
       | lend000 wrote:
       | The one that started shaking more and more as the volume got
       | louder sent me. Sometimes you have to give credit where it's due,
       | even when the result is unusable.
        
       | user3939382 wrote:
       | The worst is the "AI transformation journey" volume UI. You talk
       | to an agent to describe the character of the volume level you
       | want. It loads a volume control "skill" and adjusts it.
        
       | maest wrote:
       | This "article" just rehashes the top submissions from the reddit
       | thread and then adds some surface level musings about UX.
       | 
       | It also blasts you with a full screen subscribe popup, ostensibly
       | in case you want to see more rehashed content.
        
         | Freak_NL wrote:
         | That wasn't part of the show? The popup (no idea what was on
         | it, no one reads those of course) shows up and you think 'Ah.
         | Yes, that would be very annoying if that happened while
         | interacting with a volume slider.'
        
           | iinnPP wrote:
           | The popup also scrolled down for me and I had to scroll back
           | up to hit the X.
        
         | flyinghamster wrote:
         | Seriously, why not just link to the Reddit thread instead of
         | this? It seems like every damn site has become a Torment Nexus.
        
           | kibwen wrote:
           | In defense of this blogspam, the original posts were each
           | individual submissions to /r/programmerhumor, so there's no
           | easy way to link to a collection of them on reddit itself.
        
         | extraduder_ire wrote:
         | That popup is typical of blogs hosted on Medium. I don't know
         | if the author even has control over if it pops up or now.
        
         | joe_the_user wrote:
         | It works fine with javascript blocked, thankfully.
        
       | lzhgusapp wrote:
       | macOS has its own share of UI quirks too. The volume slider is
       | fine, but app management is surprisingly bad for a platform that
       | prides itself on UX. There's still no native way to quit all apps
       | at once, and Activity Monitor feels stuck in 2005. Small UI tools
       | that just get one thing right tend to stick around.
        
         | pasc1878 wrote:
         | MacOS requires there to be an App as First Responder - what app
         | should be that if you quit all apps?
         | 
         | The nearest that makes sense is Log Out.
        
       | Traubenfuchs wrote:
       | I feel like it's in bad taste to turn a reddit thread into a blog
       | post with zero added value instead of just linking to the thread.
        
       | noisy_boy wrote:
       | I think the one with 100 checkboxes with each for a given volume
       | gives direct access to the level of volume you want. Mad, but
       | usable.
        
         | chuckadams wrote:
         | It should make you manually check and uncheck every checkbox
         | between 0 and the target volume. Miss one and it silently
         | dismisses the dialog without changing the volume.
        
       | wiether wrote:
       | Too bad the article is from 2017 because it's missing a major
       | one: Sonos iOS app.
        
       | nubg wrote:
       | I don't get the iOS one?
        
       | zelphirkalt wrote:
       | When I read the heading, I thought: "This must surely be about
       | Windows volume control." But I didn't take into account, that
       | this is a UX design website, so it mostly deals with UX and not
       | with what happens after setting a specific numeric value for the
       | volume.
        
       | rixed wrote:
       | I thought that would be about alsamixer.
        
         | moffkalast wrote:
         | Haha, and it's Alsa's best feature by far.
        
       | dev1ycan wrote:
       | I have my sennheiser bluetooth headphones connected to windows
       | 11, for whatever reason, 90% of the time, I move the slider on
       | Windows 11 and it ignores completely the sound on my headphones,
       | just great working products. I have to use the physical buttons
       | on my headphones like a caveman
        
       | afcool83 wrote:
       | I still contend that the worst volume control UX is asking your
       | teenager to turn it down...
        
       | tiltowait wrote:
       | As I scrolled down, one of the animations started and brought up
       | a subscription modal. "Okay, _that_ one would be enraging, " I
       | thought, delighted, as I waited for the animation to loop.
       | 
       | It didn't. It was the site's real subscription modal.
       | 
       | I feel like there's a lesson in there.
        
       | neoCrimeLabs wrote:
       | One of the worst volume controls I have run across is when the UI
       | tries to simulate a physical knob. More often than not I see this
       | on VST Plugins and I have yet to find one that I actually like -
       | they are all equally terrible.
       | 
       | They appear to fall into 3 buckets:
       | 
       | 1) Worst: Direction of the cursor has move in a circular pattern
       | as if dragging a physical knob with a cursor.
       | 
       | 2) Annoying, but least common: You have to move the cursor
       | horizontally to move the knob
       | 
       | 3) Most common, but still annoying: You have to move the cursor
       | vertically to move the knob.
        
         | joe_the_user wrote:
         | Yeah, your 1 option is actually worse than some of parody
         | submissions. What makes it truly horrific is that it works just
         | enough to get you to put your thumb into muscle spasms trying
         | to do it.
        
         | the_biot wrote:
         | Common in desktop software for controlling measurement gear
         | like oscilloscopes. Those have actual knobs on the equipment,
         | so the software does the same thing and it's the worst thing
         | ever.
        
       | wishfish wrote:
       | I have a mechanical keyboard with a metal roller for controlling
       | volume. On my Mac, it works haphazardly. Rapidly rolling it
       | downwards should mute almost immediately. But around 30-40% of
       | the time, it'll just set it to a low volume instead. At least I
       | work from home so this isn't an annoyance to anyone but myself.
       | But it is annoying.
       | 
       | Oh well. From the UI's shown, I kinda like the 0-100 radio
       | buttons. Yes, it's incredibly ugly. But I like the immediate
       | precision of it.
        
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