doug.meredith at skyridge
Feb 26, 2008, 7:29 AM
Views: 690
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A different perspective on the "user experience issue"
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We've seen dozens of messages fly by about how good the MythTV user
experience is in the last few days, expressing many different opinions.
I think it is important to split MythTV into components when considering
this:
1. Setup and configuration
2. Recording scheduling.
3. Navigation and recorded TV playback.
4. Plugins
This is obviously an arbitrary breakdown, but I think it is a reasonable
one.
1. Setup and configuration isn't perfect, but it isn't horrible. I
followed some guide (Jarod Wilson I think) and had no trouble with the
initial setup. I think I would have had difficulty without a guide to
follow, and that's clearly a shortcoming. Another pet peeve of mine
about the setup is the mixing of backend and frontend configuration. I
think these should be clearly separated. But realistically, I don't do
this often, and I can live with it. Does it hold back MythTV adoption?
Hard to say, but I doubt there are many non-techies running MythTV.
2. Recording scheduling. In our house, I do all of this, so nobody
else has to worry about it. It was a little confusing to me at first,
but I learned. Could it be better? Sure. Would it be too complicated
for my wife and kids? Probably not, because they have the benefit of me
to tutor them.
3. The navigation and playback experience I think is quite good in
Myth. My wife and kids have no trouble watching TV shows. There are
some small inconsistencies and annoyances, but none significant enough
for me to even remember them. Overall it is quite intuitive.
4. The plugins are the weakest part of Myth, but that shouldn't be
surprising. There are some huge inconsistencies even in the "official"
plugins. I hope that some of these are fixed. But look at it this way:
the developers had three choices: 1. Fix a plugin to make it
consistent. 2. Make it an official plugin despite the issues. 3.
Refuse to make the plugin official. While the first option would have
been nice, it would take time and effort. That leaves two other
options. I would prefer them to pick option two. If it is too
inconsistent for me, I can chose not to run the plugin, but at least I
have the option. And the more people that use a plugin, the greater the
chance that someone will exert the effort to fix it.
So, there you have it. My view. Some will agree in whole or in part,
some won't. But I really hope that people will separate their plugin
criticism (in particular) from the rest of the system. View the plugins
as an optional component that you could choose to run or not. If you
want to criticize MythVideo, criticize that plugin, not MtyhTV as a
whole.
Doug
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A different perspective on the "user experience issue"
