App menus

[Samuel Bradshaw]

I just downloaded the church's new Book of Mormon app to my phone, and I like how the menus are organized – everything is very simple. It got me thinking about the menus in the LDS Music app, and how they could be improved...

First, the Languages button – on the home screen, if we want to switch languages, the menu is on the top left; but, if we are viewing a song and want to switch, we go to the top right. I think we should move the home screen Languages button to the top right.

Second, our Downloads button, lower-right – I like what the Book of Mormon app does in combining the language selection and downloads into one menu. I think we should append language download options to our home screen Languages menu, just like the Book of Mormon app does.

Third, the "Songs" button, lower-left, takes us to the home screen, not to a list of songs as one might expect – maybe we could rename it "Home" or "Collections" and give it an icon of books on a shelf or something.

Fourth, the buttons for different indexes: Topics, Authors, and Composers – I don't think the less-frequent use of these buttons (especially Authors and Composers) justifies the space and prominence they're given. We could put them all into a small submenu of one button that says "Indexes".

Fifth, when you're viewing a song, at the top it says (for example) "2 of 341" – I think it would be better to leave it blank or say something else. The hymns have the hymn number next to the title anyway, and for the other collections it doesn't matter so much what number it is in the list. It seems to just be cluttering filler text.

Sorry for the long train of thought. When I start thinking about one thing, ideas keep coming :)

[Hilton Campbell]

These are great suggestions. We'll need to see how they work with a Now Playing button always in the top-right. Can you add them as a New Feature in the bug tracker at https://tech.lds.org/jira/browse/LDSMUSIC?

On Oct 19, 2012, at 12:41 AM, Samuel Bradshaw <samuel.h...@gmail.com>

 wrote:

[Samuel Bradshaw]

OK. I made a new issue: https://tech.lds.org/jira/browse/LDSMUSIC-307

I've never made one before so I'm not sure it's in the right categories...

As for a "Now Playing" button/indicator – would that be better at the bottom?

---------------------
Samuel BRADSHAW
I'm a Mormon!
www.mormon.org/me/52ZR
www.facebook.com/samuel.h.bradshaw

http://singpraises.net/
---------------------

[Hilton Campbell]

Thank you, the issue you entered looks great.

The thinking behind having the Now Playing button at the top right is to mimic how Apple's Music app works. We could consider other places though.