interesting short thread/idea here, regarding the "play icon" overlay on video thumbnails. To somehow make it less dominating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28idea_lab%29#Less_int... I think this has been discussed before, but I forget where. Perhaps someone here could summarize the options and pros/cons, or can find links to older threads?
Hi Nick,
Thanks for the update about this video player icon issue.
Sadly, our multimedia team is still spread very thin, and we've had to push back any audio or video work to next fiscal year, with a very heavy heart. :(
That said, this seems like a relatively easy fix to make, so perhaps we could look at it first when we start looking at video again next year.
All the best,
Fabrice
On Oct 31, 2014, at 12:41 PM, quiddity pandiculation@gmail.com wrote:
interesting short thread/idea here, regarding the "play icon" overlay on video thumbnails. To somehow make it less dominating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28idea_lab%29#Less_int... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28idea_lab%29#Less_intrusive_video_player_icon I think this has been discussed before, but I forget where. Perhaps someone here could summarize the options and pros/cons, or can find links to older threads? _______________________________________________ Multimedia mailing list Multimedia@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/multimedia
_______________________________
Fabrice Florin Product Manager, Multimedia Wikimedia Foundation
I actually don't think changing the video play button would be a good idea. Its important that users realize the file is a playable video. Having a prominent play icon is consistent with other sites (e.g. youtube), although arguably most other sites aren't using the thumbnail to also illustrate an article. If we were to do something along these lines, I would think having it be a non-default mode would be best, where the users could toggle discrete play button mode where the play button goes into the bottom corner or something.
--bawolff
On 11/3/14, Fabrice Florin fflorin@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Nick,
Thanks for the update about this video player icon issue.
Sadly, our multimedia team is still spread very thin, and we've had to push back any audio or video work to next fiscal year, with a very heavy heart. :(
That said, this seems like a relatively easy fix to make, so perhaps we could look at it first when we start looking at video again next year.
All the best,
Fabrice
On Oct 31, 2014, at 12:41 PM, quiddity pandiculation@gmail.com wrote:
interesting short thread/idea here, regarding the "play icon" overlay on video thumbnails. To somehow make it less dominating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28idea_lab%29#Less_int... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28idea_lab%29#Less_intrusive_video_player_icon
I think this has been discussed before, but I forget where. Perhaps someone here could summarize the options and pros/cons, or can find links to older threads? _______________________________________________ Multimedia mailing list Multimedia@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/multimedia
Fabrice Florin Product Manager, Multimedia Wikimedia Foundation
On Mon, Nov 3, 2014 at 5:53 PM, Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
I actually don't think changing the video play button would be a good idea. Its important that users realize the file is a playable video. Having a prominent play icon is consistent with other sites (e.g. youtube), although arguably most other sites aren't using the thumbnail to also illustrate an article. If we were to do something along these lines, I would think having it be a non-default mode would be best, where the users could toggle discrete play button mode where the play button goes into the bottom corner or something.
I think the ideas in the onwiki thread were more along the lines of: * Putting a control-bar along the bottom of the thumbnail, with video controls, like the audio files have. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:My_Bloody_Valentine_-_Last_Supper.ogg and/or * Place the play-button-overlay somewhere other than the middle-center. Perhaps bottom-center. Or bottom-left with a timeslider, like vimeo uses. https://vimeo.com/104966526
(I understand the lack of time to work on this. Just discussing it further to get the ideas written out somewhere. :)
On 4 November 2014 23:12, quiddity pandiculation@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Nov 3, 2014 at 5:53 PM, Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
I actually don't think changing the video play button would be a good idea. Its important that users realize the file is a playable video. Having a prominent play icon is consistent with other sites (e.g. youtube), although arguably most other sites aren't using the thumbnail to also illustrate an article. If we were to do something along these lines, I would think having it be a non-default mode would be best, where the users could toggle discrete play button mode where the play button goes into the bottom corner or something.
I think the ideas in the onwiki thread were more along the lines of:
- Putting a control-bar along the bottom of the thumbnail, with video
controls, like the audio files have. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:My_Bloody_Valentine_-_Last_Supper.ogg
No. Adding yet more gunk to the page is a really terrible idea, violating the fundamental principles of only showing more stuff on the page when strictly needed. Good point though, the bad display does need to be fixed for audio files.
and/or
- Place the play-button-overlay somewhere other than the middle-center.
Perhaps bottom-center. Or bottom-left with a timeslider, like vimeo uses. https://vimeo.com/104966526
Moving the play button around, is much more an option. Again, I don't think adding more cruft is a good idea, but e.g. bottom-left without a timeslider, like BBC News does it, is also an option: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29919793%E2%80%8B
In Vimeo their *raison d'être* is for you to watch a video, so like with YouTube their interfaces are geared towards a totally different user outcome. Better examples are other news/reference sites, and YouTube/Vimeo *embeds* where the objective again is to provide an informational video which also illustrates the content, rather than
- YouTube embeds have a centred play button (with YouTube logo in the bottom right) - CNN.com has a centred play button (with words) - MSNBC.com has a top-left play button (with words) - CBC.ca has a centred play button (no words)
Etc.
J.
2014-11-05 23:24 GMT+01:00 James Forrester jforrester@wikimedia.org:
Moving the play button around, is much more an option. Again, I don't think adding more cruft is a good idea, but e.g. bottom-left without a timeslider, like BBC News does it, is also an option: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29919793%E2%80%8B
This one was really nice. Moving it down to the corner makes it worth while chosing a meaningful thumbtime for the video, giving the viewer a hint of what the video is about so that a more informed decision whether or not to start it can be made. Totally obvious it is a video, and hardly no clutter at all. This might be a winner, considering the thumbnails are fairly small in our projects, comparing to embeds of Youtube which seldom is smaller than 400 pixels wide.
On 11/5/14, James Forrester jforrester@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 4 November 2014 23:12, quiddity pandiculation@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Nov 3, 2014 at 5:53 PM, Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
I actually don't think changing the video play button would be a good idea. Its important that users realize the file is a playable video. Having a prominent play icon is consistent with other sites (e.g. youtube), although arguably most other sites aren't using the thumbnail to also illustrate an article. If we were to do something along these lines, I would think having it be a non-default mode would be best, where the users could toggle discrete play button mode where the play button goes into the bottom corner or something.
I think the ideas in the onwiki thread were more along the lines of:
- Putting a control-bar along the bottom of the thumbnail, with video
controls, like the audio files have. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:My_Bloody_Valentine_-_Last_Supper.ogg
No. Adding yet more gunk to the page is a really terrible idea, violating the fundamental principles of only showing more stuff on the page when strictly needed. Good point though, the bad display does need to be fixed for audio files.
There's already a control bar on some video files if you hover your mouse over them (It depends which code path is triggered. It happens on videos with big enough thumbnails that they aren't opened in a new window. This is true for most image pages).
I'm unclear on what specifically you are objecting to on audio files. Are you not liking the "Menu" button?
--bawolff
On 6 November 2014 01:05, Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/5/14, James Forrester jforrester@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 4 November 2014 23:12, quiddity pandiculation@gmail.com wrote:
I think the ideas in the onwiki thread were more along the lines of:
- Putting a control-bar along the bottom of the thumbnail, with video
controls, like the audio files have. e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:My_Bloody_Valentine_-_Last_Supper.ogg
No. Adding yet more gunk to the page is a really terrible idea,
violating
the fundamental principles of only showing more stuff on the page when strictly needed. Good point though, the bad display does need to be fixed for audio files.
There's already a control bar on some video files if you hover your mouse over them (It depends which code path is triggered. It happens on videos with big enough thumbnails that they aren't opened in a new window. This is true for most image pages).
I'm unclear on what specifically you are objecting to on audio files. Are you not liking the "Menu" button?
No, the menu button is fine; indeed, it's pretty much everything else that's wrong with it. :-)
Each audio file transclusion has in its "rest" non-hover state the entire set of playback controls, which isn't what we do for videos (even, as you say, the ones where the preview is "big enough", where we only show these controls on hover).
Per https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MediaWiki_audio_file_transclusion_%E... which I just took, the interface:
- shows a time offset from the start, which provides no value before it starts playing; - shows a "CC" button for closed captions which shows in the exact same state even when there aren't any; - shows a compound volume/mute button which adds more complexity; and yet - doesn't tell you (except implicitly by not showing a picture) that it's an audio.
See *e.g.* the BBC for how audio excerpts can be shown with a simple audio play icon to activate the toolbar and everything else instead, with must less visual noise and clutter (most viewers of the article aren't here to listen to the audio/video files, *etc.*):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30016007
J.
On video, 2 quick notes: I've filed a bug, mostly just to collate the discussion so far (or in case of random volunteers! If this is simple enough to be a GSOC/etc task (I don't know), please add any helpful notes to that bug :) https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=73438
and that it's being discussed afresh (mostly just a reiteration of the previous comments) at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#Less_in...
On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 4:58 AM, James Forrester jforrester@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 6 November 2014 01:05, Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/5/14, James Forrester jforrester@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 4 November 2014 23:12, quiddity pandiculation@gmail.com wrote:
I think the ideas in the onwiki thread were more along the lines of:
- Putting a control-bar along the bottom of the thumbnail, with video
controls, like the audio files have. e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:My_Bloody_Valentine_-_Last_Supper.ogg
No. Adding yet more gunk to the page is a really terrible idea,
violating
the fundamental principles of only showing more stuff on the page when strictly needed. Good point though, the bad display does need to be
fixed
for audio files.
There's already a control bar on some video files if you hover your mouse over them (It depends which code path is triggered. It happens on videos with big enough thumbnails that they aren't opened in a new window. This is true for most image pages).
I'm unclear on what specifically you are objecting to on audio files. Are you not liking the "Menu" button?
No, the menu button is fine; indeed, it's pretty much everything else that's wrong with it. :-)
Each audio file transclusion has in its "rest" non-hover state the entire set of playback controls, which isn't what we do for videos (even, as you say, the ones where the preview is "big enough", where we only show these controls on hover).
Per https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MediaWiki_audio_file_transclusion_%E... which I just took, the interface:
- shows a time offset from the start, which provides no value before
it starts playing;
- shows a "CC" button for closed captions which shows in the exact
same state even when there aren't any;
- shows a compound volume/mute button which adds more complexity; and
yet
- doesn't tell you (except implicitly by not showing a picture) that
it's an audio.
See *e.g.* the BBC for how audio excerpts can be shown with a simple audio play icon to activate the toolbar and everything else instead, with must less visual noise and clutter (most viewers of the article aren't here to listen to the audio/video files, *etc.*):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30016007
J.
James D. Forrester Product Manager, Editing Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
jforrester@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester
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