Jon Ochenas — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:45 GMT

A nit to pick, but I must:

iPod/iTunes expressly does NOT use a queue for playback (setting aside playlists/on the go).

In regular playback situations, the view is the queue – once you start playing a song, playback continues down whatever list of songs was in view when playback was started. That’s why iTunes has the little arrow in the information window to return you to the view that is feeding the current playback.

The iTunes paradigm needs some support on the iPod, thus the addition of the “Now Playing” menu item. However, the Now Playing screen does not replace the arrow widget described above and does not allow the user to see the list of songs that are playing. To see that list they must follow the browse path that kicked off playback in the first place.

This approach differs from many other applications and devices that use a queue as a place where songs must go to be played. After songs are placed in the queue they can be saved as a playlist etc.

I’m still not sure which is the best approach – the time I’ve spent in the lab looking at how users approach these models yields little sense that one is better than the other. Newbies tend to do well with either while more habituated users prefer what they were exposed to first.

In general, it seems to me that the queue system is more powerful but requires some discovery while the WYSIWYH (what you see is what you hear) model is more obvious, but dead ends the user in certain tasks.

Mr. Constantiono is entirely accurate that there is much lurking below the surface that should be more deeply explored. I do have a couple thoughts on the popularity of shuffle mode though:

1) It’s simple and requires very little thought. It also yields unexpected juxtapositions of songs that can be quite delightful.

2) It’s a great way to explore all the songs you “borrowed” from your friend but have no idea what they are or whether you’ll like them.

- Jon

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Jon Ochenas