Heuristic Evaluation of VLC Media Player

Heuristic Evaluation: VLC Media Player 1

Sree Anirudh J Bhandaram

Heuristic Evaluation: VLC Media Player


Usability Engineering

Instructor: Kara Rozen

4004-748-70

Winter 2008

Rochester Institute of Technology



ABOUT THE APPLICATION

VLC Media player is an open source Media player developed by the VideoLAN project. VLC

player is a favorite option of many users because of its simple, bare bones, hassle free

interface and its ability to play a variety of file formats, including most of the audio and

video formats. Best of all – its free! “It is one of the most platform-independent players

available, with versions for BeOS, Syllable, BSD, Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows,

MorphOS and Solaris, and is widely used with over 100 million downloads for version 0.8.6”

[1]. VLC was originally developed by students at the École Centrale Paris. VLC stands for

VideoLAN Client; it was released under the GPL (General Public License) on February 1st,

2001.

HEURISTIC EVALUATION OF THE APPLICATION

“These are ten general principles for user interface design. They are called "heuristics"

because they are more in the nature of rules of thumb than specific usability guidelines” [2].

Visibility of System Status: “The system should always keep users informed about what is

going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time” [2]. This heuristic gets a

rating of 4.5/5.0, The reasons are stated below:

When paused, the play/pause icon changes to the Play state, indicating the next

operation to be a play operation.



There is a continuous status update at the bottom of the window which shows the play

time, a song name ticker and play speed. This status update stops once all songs are

played.

Under windowed mode, all the function buttons are visible. For movies however, in full

screen mode, the controls are hidden and are seen only when there’s a mouse cursor

movement.

The media player has a very good response time, almost instantaneous.

The application does not throw any error message when a different file type is opened; it

just skips it without any indication of the file not playing. Also, the playlist is not

immediately displayed unless the corresponding button is clicked.

2. Match between system and the real world: “The system should speak the users' language,

with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented

terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical

order” [2]. This heuristic gets a rating of 5/5, the reasons are stated below:

The application is very similar to any media players out there. All the controls,

features and terminology are standard.

Any user who has used a media player before would have no problem understanding

the functionality of the application.

3. User control and freedom: “Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need

a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go

through an extended dialogue” [2]. This heuristic gets a rating of 5/5, the reasons are

stated below:



The UI of VLC media player is very simple and intuitive, this makes it very simple to

use and an inexperienced user would have little or no problem using the application.

The application doesn’t trap the user in any way because it follows all the standards of

a Media player. It also comes with conventional buttons and icons.

4. Consistency and Standards: “Users should not have to wonder whether different words,

situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions” [2]. This

heuristic gets a rating of 4.75/5.0, the reasons are stated below:

The overall look is very decent and not too flashy. The display is limited to the

visibility of functional components and there are no extra graphical components.

The only navigation the application has is the Menu bar, which is a conventional

windows menu bar.

The nomenclature used in the application is similar to that of any other media player.

Like other generic players, VLC doesn’t show its playlist upon startup. This might leave

the user wondering if there was a playlist in the application.

5. Error prevention: “Even better than good error messages is a careful design which

prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone

conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they

commit to the action” [2]. This heuristic gets a rating of 4.5/5.0, the reasons are stated

below:

The application does not give a confirmation dialog when you click on the exit button

on the top right corner. This is now a standard in most applications and it’s surprising

that VLC media player doesn’t prompt the user before exiting. This results in losing

the items in the playlist.



All the commands in this application are via selection, i.e., clicking a corresponding

button on the UI.

6. Recognition rather than recall: “Minimize the user's memory load by making objects,

actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one

part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or

easily retrievable whenever appropriate” [2]. This heuristic gets a rating of 4.75/5.0, the

reasons are stated below:

User doesn’t need to remember a lot, since the media player follows the conventional

buttons, icons and commands.

The only problem is when the player exits. It doesn’t prompt a user to save the

playlist, which might force the user to recall the last session that was played.

7. Flexibility and efficiency of use: “Accelerators -- unseen by the novice user -- may often

speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both

inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions” [2]. This

heuristic gets a rating of 5/5, the reasons are stated below:

An experienced user has a variety of keyboard shortcuts, also called as “hotkeys” and

mouse gestures to enable faster interaction with the application; these actions are all

detailed in the online help site.

8. Aesthetic and minimalist design: “Dialogues should not contain information which is

irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with

the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility” [2]. This

heuristic gets a rating of 5/5, the reasons are stated below:



The applications various commands match the task being performed. For example, the

full screen option and various other video options are disabled while playing an audio

track, which of course are enabled during video playback.

Audio playback mode: Video Playback mode:

The application is not complicated in any way; it’s a barebones media player.

If the mouse cursor hovers over a button, it shows a tool-tip describing function of the

button.

Contrast between the background and text on buttons/menu bar is good and the text

is clear and visible.

The application has a very small display size and the buttons are close enough but not

so close that you might click the wrong button.

The various elements in the application follow gestalts laws.

Figure showing gestalts laws of proximity and similarity

9. Help users recognize, diagnose and recover from error: “Error messages should be

expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively

suggest a solution” [2]. This heuristic gets a rating of 4.5/5.0, the reasons are stated

below:

If there is an error, the application tries to correct it by itself; the application also

shows a dialog box suggesting the problem and a solution.

If we use the task manager to forcefully quit the application, it does not save the

current session; this makes the user lose all the items in the playlist!



The error messages are easy to read and understand and there are no codes mentioned

for errors.

Figure showing an error message and a possible solution

10. Help and documentation: “Even though it is better if the system can be used without

documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such

information should be easy to search, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be

carried out, and not be too large” [2]. This heuristic gets a rating of 4.5/5.0, the reasons

are stated below:

The application has no help in itself, but there is an extensive VideoLAN wiki online at

http://wiki.videolan.org. This might be a problem for users working offline, with no

internet connection.

Mouse over on a button shows a tool-tip, but mouse over on an item in the menu bar

doesn’t show any quick help.



CONCLUSION

VLC media player is one of the simplest and the most intuitive players out there. It has a very

simple User Interface. The application gets a very high average rating of 4.75 based on the

ten heuristics mentioned above. The application is very similar in functionality to most media

players out there. The advantages that VLC player has over competing applications are the

range of media files it can play and also the fact that it is open source. With a minimal design

and little or no graphical elements, the application is extremely fast loading and always plays

a file instantaneously without a lag. It has a robust error handling mechanism and it solves

most problems itself. It caters to both novice and expert users by including various hotkeys

and mouse gestures, it also prevents occurrence of an error by enabling or disabling features

with respect to the type of task being performed. VLC media player has an extensive help

online in the form of a wiki, it also has a help forum on its website.



REFERENCES

1. The VLC page on Wikipedia, referenced on December 9th, 2008.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlc

2. Heuristics for UI design by Jakob Nielsen referenced on December 9th, 2008.

http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlc

http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html

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Heuristic Evaluation of VLC Media Player