Interface Usability, Design Ideas and Thoughts

[samgreco]

So as I finished the basic stuff on my new skin, it occurs to me that I don't have any real idea how I'm going to design this so it's easy for others (read wife, etc.) to use. Plus, I'm doing it differently than a typical Xlobby user thus far. Although it seems to be the direction Calrad/Xlobby is going. So I thought that a general discussion of interface design might be good. Here goes.

When using an external switcher, preamp, whatever, like the Xantech, Russound, Niles, how do you design the interface when you have 3 or 4 sound card "zones" in Xlobby a couple of AM/FM tuners, SageTV, etc., most connected to the switcher. I have seen some where the user has to pick a source, then a zone, then the media to play. It works but can be confusing for the non-techie. And the screens can get very cluttered and hard to navigate. And if someone else is already using something on the system, how does that get conveyed? Can the second user unwittingly screw it up for the first?

Then there's the Motorola Premise way. Pick a room, pick your media and play. Add a room to the "group" if you like. It handles what player/source/input the media requested needs. The user never has to think about it. It knows what sources are available or which are being used already. But the interface is UGLY and it's so old now that there is very little new hardware supported. (Man would I LOVE to see Calrad add Premise to this mix! Heck, Motorola's not using it ) If you haven't seen it, I suggest checking it out. If for no other reason then to understand a different approach. The hardware driver concepts are great too. Add a multizone switcher driver. Click and drag sound cards to inputs and it works.

So, any thoughts? Ideas? I think with the group here that there could probably be some great concepts coming from it. Plus with Calrad/Xlobby planning on showing at CEDIA this fall, it may help them too, since these are certainly issues the pro integrators would be concerned with too.

[Wayne123]

I would love to see a Xlobby interface on top of Premise, the GUI on Premise is terrible compared to Xlobby with all the great skins people have come up with. I guess you can buy a different gui for Premise but maybe I didn't ask right and my e-mails were ignored or lost. I looked at some custom user interface designs for AMX and Crestron and they cost
many hundreds of dollars each so the fact that Xlobby has so many great ones is a big plus and I can't wait to see what the pro version has to offer come September.

I think it would be great to see Motorola sell the source code for Premise,
maybe Calrad can work a deal for cheap seeing it is not part of their core business. I don't believe they have any intentions of ever doing anything with it anyways.

[samgreco]

After Motorola bought Premise, there was talk for a long time about version 3. Then Moto killed it. Strange.

I've thought about Xlobby on top of Premise, but with the core of Premise being so old, you'll never see newer hardware supported, except for end-users writing drivers.

I don't know who is selling GUIs anymore for Premise, but it just doesn't seem to be a good value anymore

Besides, I think that the core of Xlobby is VERY good. I brought up Premise as an example of how media can be dealt with. Their mSense was FAR ahead of it's time. I think that Xlobby can be made to work almost as well with a bit of thought.

[Marbles_00]

I thought about that same thing when designing ZoneSkin2/3. I had to keep it simple for my wife who is a non-techie (and thinks I'm a geek ). For that I felt that the best solution would be to pick your zone, then pick your source. Then the only confusion, and I've yet to show her is the ability to break, or bring back a zone from a group situation. I guess it is very similar to the Premise way of thinking.

Adding a matrix switcher shouldn't be all that difficult to the end user and should appear seamless, if as long as the installer has done their part at integrating it into the system successfully. To the end user, it should only need to be:

1) select your zone,
2) select your source (or vise versa) and that's that.

The routing should all be automatic. The only other easily accessable thing should be the volume. Most other controls, like EQ's and the sort, non-techies don't really care to use, thus don't need to be in the forfront (meaning only us geeks know how to dig down into the system to get to these "extra" features).

Though your view of two clients connected at the same time never really crossed my mind (until now), and could very well be a dilema if both clients connect and try to control the same zone. I've had two thin clients connected, but they were accessing different parts of the system. Hmm....something to try out over the weekend for sure.

[Wayne123]

I don't know who is selling GUIs anymore for Premise, but it just doesn't seem to be a good value anymore

I think it was some of the guys who worked on the program, I figured it would be $500 or more for their updated GUI but seeing both people I emailed never responded I wouldn't want to give them any money now anyways. I will wait and see how Xlobby turns out in September and then decide between Xlobby and CQC but I like Xlobby better as long as it supports all the standard HA stuff. I use Insteon for lighting now but I am considering switching to either Lutron Radio RA or Z-wave and it would be nice if Xlobby could work as a Upnp A/V control point to send video off my media server to a networked media player like I can do with Premise.
I don't want to use a computer for video playback in other zones.

[samgreco]

Though your view of two clients connected at the same time never really crossed my mind (until now), and could very well be a dilema if both clients connect and try to control the same zone. I've had two thin clients connected, but they were accessing different parts of the system. Hmm....something to try out over the weekend for sure.

Yeah. More of an issue than you'd think in a lot of installations. Even in my home with just my wife and I it could be an issue. I have zones in my garage and behind it in the garden. I could be listening to music there and she could be in the living room and decide to play something. She'd never hear mine from the living room, so she might not think about "another instance" running. One example anyway.

Premise's mSense dealt with that for you by knowing that it had x many inputs and x many outputs on the switcher and what was hooked to it. So if you were playing MP3s let's say, and had 3 sets of outputs for MP3s, it would assign the first one to you. Next person would simple say play this album and mSense would know that output set one is in use so use set two. If you used them up, it would tell you that there was no device available to play your selected media. All that while knowing which inputs and outputs were switched where on the switcher to manage it.

The other advantage to that method is that if you had one AM/FM tuner and another just FM, it would understand that and let you play FM in 2 zones simultaneously, but AM in only one.

I would think that you could acheive something similar in Xlobby with IF/Then kinds of things.

The other issue is terminology. In the pro market, installers are going to get VERY confused when an Xlobbier starts to talk about zones

I think it was some of the guys who worked on the program, I figured it would be $500 or more for their updated GUI but seeing both people I emailed never responded I wouldn't want to give them any money now anyways. I will wait and see how Xlobby turns out in September and then decide between Xlobby and CQC but I like Xlobby better as long as it supports all the standard HA stuff.

I went through exactly the same thing. I got one response that it was something like $500 and I said, for that I'd want to see it. They then asked for a signed NDA, which I thought was strange. And they never got back to me.

As for CQC, I am sitting on the same fence. Waiting to see how it all falls out. I decided on UPB for lighting control and bought a fair amount of the HAL stuff from Fry's, so I am commited there. Unfortunately, there isn't much supporting it yet.

That's why I have pestered Steven and Wes for info. I HATE to waste money and need to get moving. So I have recently started considering Homeseer for the automation side and Xlobby for the entertainment side.

Which brings me to here

[Wayne123]

I went through exactly the same thing. I got one response that it was something like $500 and I said, for that I'd want to see it. They then asked for a signed NDA, which I thought was strange. And they never got back to me.

I guess that is why they blew me off, I asked for a few screenshots when I emailed both of them. I hate when people try to be too secretive about price and stuff, I know a C.I. is going to get a different price then a D.I.Y.
user so just post your prices for the D.I.Y. users and stop playing games.
I would of paid $500 if their GUI looked nice. I am sure that if I buy Xlobby I will get a great working and looking GUI and can't wait to see how it turns out.

[wesblack]

It's good to see everyone getting involved here. I just want to mention a few things.

Steven and I are hard at work every day trying to get xLobby to where we want it and hearing your feed back contiues to add idea's and features that we know are most of all important to the users of xLobby.

Some things that everyone needs to know. First off since the first day that Steven created xLobby his intrest was to program the core along the way for fun and non-commercial use not thinking about the day where we are now. The development process at first was slow but is getting better for a few reasons, 1. The code in some area's was not documented or was unfinished, so we have made huge efforts to create remarks and comments in the current designs to assist us for future changes and modifications. 2. The software was not complete in many area's and needed to be completed. 3. For non-technical people xLobby was difficult to load and configure, to use and understand as it was, this also has been addressed and is improving every day. Steven's talent as programmer is incredible we have been able to do things together that I beleive would have taken 3 times as long with other outside resources.

Calrads agreement with steven from the begining was to let him handle all the core development from the start since he is the most familiar with everything he has created. Getting other programmers involved now would have caused some confusion, conflict on direction or coding methods to do the development of xLobby. From my personal experience can lead to tons of issues with mixed coding changes and loss of stability, etc. that may have delayed this project by much longer then we all wanted.

Once we get the core under control the add-ons that everyone wants will be much easier to deal with. Here is a few things that we are working on.

1. Calrad has signed on as a Strategic Alliance partner agreement with Global Cache and have there control modules and SDK in hand for development into xLobby, this will provide another solution for IP based control since users here have voiced concerns over cost for these type of products as well as having alternative products is good for everyone. We will still continue to support integration of Aurora WACI products into xLobby as well.

2. We are also adding a similar product like the USB-UIRT to xLooby as a stand alone add on USB device as well as a built-in unit for use in our client-server chassis. This device will learn and transmit IR codes. This solution will provide a low cost solution for external devices using xLobby. Since we will have complete control over the dongle we will be able to do some interesting things not possible before.

3. We have also received our Insteon development kits and access to there development forums for integration of the products into xLobby. More lighting control Manufactures and ready to use templates will be added as time permits.

4. I have started the process of Implementing RS232 communication between Russounds multi-room systems and xLobby, when I have more of the interface created I will be posting screenshots and further information.

Calrad did have some involvment with Premise at one time, but they were bought by motorola before we could get any real relationship started, they have some nice features that we can look at integrating into xLobby, all suggestions or comments are welcome.

As soon as we get closer to a release I will be introducing new people here at Calrad to the forum they will be directly involved in the future support of xLobby software and hardware products.

Thanks for everyones continued support !






Wes Black \ Calrad

[samgreco]

Thanks for jumping in Wes. Appreciate the info.

I really started this to try and get ideas going on how to design interfaces. And it is unique with every program. I mentioned Premise to offer one example of managing an HA system which I thought was clever.

And may I hopefully suggest UPB

Although, it sounds like it will be a few months before you get to other lighting stuff. I may need to get Homeseer . Gotta get this system going by the mid summer. Too many other things and projects after that .

[samgreco]

First a bit of background on the system as I see it (limiting to music for this example).

Xlobby runs on a server with all of the music files on it and 3 sound cards for potential simultaneous output. Those outputs go to a matrix switching/preamp device with multiple inputs (sources) multiple outputs (zones). Then on to amps and speakers. So the "traditional" Xlobby zones model is out the window.

So riddle me this Batman:

If a user walks up to a client touchscreen and wants to play music. Using the topology above, what is the best way possible with Xlobby now to make it so the user just selects the music they want to hear and the zone(s) they want to hear it in without the need to know which player they are using. Or even that there are multiple players. When my mother visits, she'll never be able to make it work otherwise

Are there conditionals that one could use to say if Winamp 1 is busy, use Winamp 2, if that's busy, go to 3. If they're all busy, popup a message saying something like "can't play this now because to many blah, blah, blah..."

This could be extended to other sources plugged into the matrix as well. But Xlobby would need to know the states of all of the gear, all the time.

Any thoughts?