iPod User Interface · Fri Feb 17, 09:28 AM

There are a couple of nice things about the iPod Shuffle’s interface. They’re small things, but indicate excellent attention to detail and to how things should work. One is the fact that it automatically pauses if you unplug the headphones. Brilliant! Of course you can’t hear the music with your headphones unplugged, and you would want the music to pause until you get them reconnected. Yet this is the first audio player I’ve seen that does this. Second, if you hit the “rewind” button and it’s in the first few (5? 10?) seconds of a track, it skips back to the previous track. I have several other audio devices that require you to hit the rewind button once to get back to the beginning of the track, and then again, really fast, to skip back to the previous track. The iPod’s behavior is targeting the 98% case—one very rarely wants to go back to the beginning of a track 2 seconds into it. In fact, I don’t think I’ve personally been in that situation ever. Other user interface designers would do well to take lessons from Apple (this is not a new observation, but it has proven itself once again).

-- David --

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