Front panel poll

Is the front panel fine how it is or could it use some improvement?

  • Fine How it is

    Votes: 94 37.2%

  • Needs improvement

    Votes: 77 30.4%

  • rats behind, don't use it enough to have an opinion either way

    Votes: 82 32.4%
  • Total voters
    253
  • Poll closed .
vangrieg said:
I have no idea whether this is a reasonable standard, but I'm definitely spending more time on this discussion than it's worth for me. :)

I am sharing my experience and impressions, that's all.
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Fair enough, but seems to me the above meme-trading should be reversed. To me, expecting the front panel UI of a device that is this deep to be something that you can walk up to and expect to be able to do something you haven't tried to do on it in 6 months+ to come naturally and intuitively first try is the snobby aristocrat position, where those that accept that operations that aren't performed regularly from the front panel might take a little hunting/pecking to make happen are the simpleton working folks.
 
Watt McCo said:
Fair enough, but seems to me the above meme-trading should be reversed. To me, expecting the front panel UI of a device that is this deep to be something that you can walk up to and expect to be able to do something you haven't tried to do on it in 6 months+ to come naturally and intuitively first try is the snobby aristocrat position, where those that accept that operations that aren't performed regularly from the front panel might take a little hunting/pecking to make happen are the simpleton working folks.
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It works for me with most devices, wherever that puts me on the aristocrat-peasant scale.

I'm not sure that the number of options alone is an unsurmountable barrier to a more intuitive interface, so I don't see how an improvement here may be a bad thing and why anyone would argue against it, unless you are some big artist's tech and don't want any changes anywhere anytime.

That being said, I totally agree that as a (very) occasional user of the front panel, I'm hardly the target audience - even if it becomes the best interface ever created, I'll resort to Edit anyway, it's just more convenient for me to use a computer.

Whatever, I think I've said everything I have to say about this issue by now. :) I can live with the current interface, too, it's not a big deal really.
 
So… with 200 respondents (and setting aside the roughly 30% who don’t use it enough to have an opinion) I know that if I were manufacturing a device and 40% of those having an opinion it think its’ user interface “needs improvement” I’d have to give their feedback some pretty serious consideration.
 
touch33 said:
So… with 200 respondents (and setting aside the roughly 30% who don’t use it enough to have an opinion) I know that if I were manufacturing a device and 40% of those having an opinion it think its’ user interface “needs improvement” I’d have to give their feedback some pretty serious consideration.
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Actually, 7 out of 10 users either think it’s fine how it is or don’t care enough about it to see much change. That’s 30% of the user base. Whether that’s a significant enough a number to divert resources from other development can be debated.
 
In most surveys the responses that are “I don’t care enough to have an opinion” are typically discarded. Of course it’s up to every manufacturer to determine resource allocation, just as it is to determine if those resources are being used to their best result.
 
ruso said:
No, that’s 30% of the results. I doubt even the entire forum member list is 30% of Fractal’s user base.
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It would be interesting to know if that’s accurate. I’d think with a product as “deep” as the AxeFX devices the Forum might be more active than 30%. What say you, @FractalAudio?
 
ruso said:
No, that’s 30% of the results. I doubt even the entire forum member list is 30% of Fractal’s user base.
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You’re right. Unless fractal decides to shoot out an email blast, this is as best as we will get to polling the user base Id say. It’s like a vaccination trial. They dont try it on EVERYONE, but get a good idea of the answers they’re looking for among the user base.
 
touch33 said:
In most surveys the responses that are “I don’t care enough to have an opinion” are typically discarded. Of course it’s up to every manufacturer to determine resource allocation, just as it is to determine if those resources are being used to their best result.
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The answer posed isn’t merely not having an opinion. The answer is the user doesnt use the front panel to the point they care about it either way. It’s safe and fair to assume these people would prefer development in other places.
 
Bruce Sokolovic said:
The answer is the user doesnt use the front panel to the point they care about it either way. It’s safe and fair to assume these people would prefer development in other places.
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1) Agreed

2) No, it isn’t. Your castle/your rules, but in a unbiased survey it would be inappropriate to assume the preferences of non-responders.
 
Watt McCo said:
Fair enough, but seems to me the above meme-trading should be reversed. To me, expecting the front panel UI of a device that is this deep to be something that you can walk up to and expect to be able to do something you haven't tried to do on it in 6 months+ to come naturally and intuitively first try is the snobby aristocrat position, where those that accept that operations that aren't performed regularly from the front panel might take a little hunting/pecking to make happen are the simpleton working folks.
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Axe-Fx having deep parameter edits is understood. It's not that we need to be magically aware of what the parameters do. But just navigating it has a bunch of quirks and usually 15-20 seconds of staring at various buttons and menu items wondering how exactly to do something. Compare that to Axe edit. Very intuitive to hook stuff up, build a preset and modify parameters. Understanding what those parameters do is obviously something that requires reading a manual / watching Leon Todd videos.
I'll still take modeling updates over the hardware UI since I just use Axe-Edit anyway.
 
With essentialy every user interface there are quirks that you have to get used to to be able to navigate/use them quickly and efficiently. I for one have never extensively used the front panel for anything and I would be so lost without Axe-Edit but what I can say is that other than its obvious quirks stated so many times before, the Axe's UI isn't any worse than anything out there. It's just different with its own quirks. If anything, I'd say the way the display is used is pretty informative and the screens hold lots of information but I can see why some people preferring simpler interfaces would find them crowded.
 
yek said:
BTW, I'm a fan of very clean UIs. Less lines / borders, less colors etc.
I kind of like the QC looks.

But let's not forget that Fractal's UI has much more functionality to support, and many features were added by request of users.
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I was against touch screen. But, given the number of parameters/pages/controllers/... I think a touch screen should be used in next Fractal generations. Some value knob/button could be useful, but in a dark environment actual interface is hard to use. The "select what you see in the screen" is faster, simpler and less error prone. If FM3 could have a touch screen, upper right navigation buttons could be ditched, with a couple of more useful stompswitches...
 
To prevent possible confusion: I wasn’t commenting on the touch screen or functionality of the QC, I have no experience with it. I was just referring to the “clean” visual appearance.
 
It seems odd to me how common the answer to "I don't like the UI" is a defensive post about just spending more time to learn it. I feel like a more relevant question is can you go back and forth between the two interfaces intuitively? The answer to that seems to a pretty clear no.

But that aside, another question I have is does the front panel interface really need to be good? Considering how deep the unit is, it seems like it would be extremely challenging to make the front panel functional without a large number of clicks unless you changed the form factor of the unit and made the interface more like a modern car infotainment system. But this is an obvious tradeoff with rack real estate.

I'm also honestly surprised how many people use the front panel as a primary interface. If we all agree that the II is a "pro" piece of gear, I feel like a pro use case would be working out patches ahead of time (using Axe-Edit) and then using a foot controller live for most control. That would make the front panel basically a backup interface, which gets back to the question of how good does it need to be?
 
Coming from the Ultra, a couple of II versions, and now my second III, the front panel has come a long way! Where it is now was driven by function and is, as you’d suspect, very functional for the user who takes the time to learn the basics. Those not willing to learn need an interface that is so simple, it’s an impediment. I hope Cliff never chases that end of the spectrum.
 
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