Please enter a few words why you have given the MP3 Player this rating.
The volume control is the worst part. The information form is useless as it's now.
Buttons and interaction are ok, although it is not clear how one would adjust the volume? Any available instructions? Was the bar on the right meant to operate something?
The volume control issues (mentioned above) brought down the overall rating of this interface. The play controls (although slightly ambiguous) are fine and the application in general performs as expected with all the functions required (although perhaps some additional functions such as loop and random order would have been helpful).
Any navigation is clearly shows on the MP3 Player
I could find no volume controller, despite clicking around. I’m a very experienced computer use. I’ve got over 25 years of experience. I have experience of programming. But either I’ve missed something, or the software hasn’t functioned properly.
Not sure if you have deliberately tried to develop a hard to use system, when compared with itunes this is terrible, the volume controls are counter intuitive and have no labelling, the feedback for loud seems to be the wrong way around. The fact that you have had to tell the person to hold down shirt for multiple files in an instruction manual is poor. The MP3 player has no metaphoric connection to a normal hi-fi which is disappointing.
I found it easy to play but couldn’t find any switches for volume. However I’m sure once indicated it would be easy for me to operate.
Apart from the volume control which I couldn’t really see why it had to be so complicated, I believe that it is a very usable mp3 player and if you have a little familiarity with any player before, it doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes to understand how everything works. The lay-out is well designed, too, and one finds everything where he/she expects them to be. Basically, the moment you install the software, you are pretty much able to play your music. To be honest, I would prefer it over windows media player (not over winamp, though).
This Player seems easy to use but would be improved by the addition of internationally recognised symbols for Play, Stop Rewind, Fast Forward, Volume up, Volume down etc.
I liked this player very much. Seemed to have everything except a working volume control
Overall it’s easy to use except the volume control, which is a bit hard to understand.
Simple layout, but not user-friendly. Information control is terribly time-consuming to work with, and volume control unnecessarily complex.
The volume controls are the biggest reason for the low scores overall. In general the controls were slow to use and a bit clunky. There was little feedback to know whether I was doing, or selecting the right thing or not.
I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to replace Winamp :-) It doesn’t have enough basic functions to be useable on a day-to-day basis, like even displaying the artist and title in the main window. It also has specific failings as discussed below. Visually it’s nice and simple, but it’s also pretty big. In its favour, it does actually seem to play music, which is more than some you download do!
it was very easy for me to use the mp3 player from the first time except for the volume control
I could not adjust the volume, and didn’t know where the volume change setting was. The MP3 Information screen was confusing, and inconsistent
I do not persevere with software that I find difficult to use. I do not see it as a challenge. If I am struggling, I usually get my ten year old to explain it to me.
It is in general easy to use, however with a few functions not working properly.
It was awful, looks wise and trying to operate it.
I could not get the volume control to work, and it was not clear at all as to how I should do this. Finding out information about the artist involved different methods for different pieces of information and some did not work.
Could not use volume control (not sure exactly where this is), and was not easy to do last question; entering information in the ‘MP3 Information’ as would not allow me to change/enter things in.
It was generally straightforward, but I had a few problems. I couldn’t get the volume control to work (but was able to identify the correct area), and found opening tracks tiresome, but could see a work around (either go through the process once opening all files I would want in a session or make it the default MP3 player)
While opening and playing the files was very easy and straightforward, the volume control did not work and was also not clearly labelled.
Overall it is visually unappealing, inflexible (e.g. storing playlists), the volume and information controls are very frustrating to use, and all of this would make this player redundant when I can have a leading, usable, free software like iTunes.
Quite easy to learn / operate – bad volume control.
1. Learning to operate this player is I think easy as it has few controls to operate on. 2. But I was not able to find a volume control to increase volume or decrease it. 3. Overall my interaction with every part of player was clear and I understood what I am doing. 4. This player could be more flexible by the introduction of icons with text on buttons. 5. I still think it is quite easy to use player with if few enhancements take place.
While the application allows me to play the file, the information interface was not appealing, and the volume control/controls were not responsive. Hence, I was not able to fully control the use pf the application.
The basics work – but pretty much nothing else – at least what I could glean from the UI. But all I want is the basics so I’m not bothered about bells and whistles.
I found the use of the MP3 player easy but there were some aspects of usability concerning volume control and information control which I found not be very user friendly

Please enter a few words why you have given the Play Control this rating.
Clear and easy to understand. What you get is what you see.
With the exception of the ambiguity between “next” and “fast forward” (and also with previous and fast backwards) the play control was easy to use. The next and previous buttons could be better labelled as “Next Track” and “Previous Track” to avoid ambiguity.
It has the control area well designed and easy to understand by using self explained lables
Again, it depends on what I want to do. Within the limits of its own functionality. It was straightforward. Why have a separate pause and play button?
Follows standard conventions such as double click to start
It had the most prominent position on the interface, plus it was the larger button. I think that this goes along with what people expect the play button to be like in a player. So, they don’t really have to think when using it.
Seemed very straight forward and it worked well
Overall it’s ok but the Fast Forward and Fast Backwards are a bit confusing. Generally they are not displayed as buttons and that’s a bit strange.
Too many buttons. The expectation again, from using other digital and analogue sound applications, is that the “play” button should be combined with the “pause” button. Icons rather than text on the buttons would also be more user-friendly.
The controls were very basic, there was no manipulation of the music file related to a time bar, which proves very useful with other similar applications.
Okay, the basic functions work fine, but fast forward and fast backwards don’t work well at all, IMHO. Normally you assume that holding a FF/RW button down would skip through the track. But these seemed to leap by 10 seconds (which is OK), but the delay was considerable, so it was easy to think that it hadn’t worked and do it too many times.
it was easy to jamp from file to another
Easy enough to use, and quite intuitive, but I am used to the icons usually used to represent these functions, and having to read words on the interface buttons is a slower process.
In general it works. But when press the next and previous buttons the blue bar on the screen doesn’t seem to move with the selected music.
Nothing special about this control but needs to be more interactive with the files you are playing and presented in the window to see what you are doing it doesn’t look user friendly.
It seemed intuitive and I got it working no problem
It was clear where to click and it worked
Clearly labelled and very easy to understand and use.
It is very self explanatory and conforms to norms found on many physical and software media players
The buttons are clear to understand. However the support of icons with text could have earned full points.
Play control is easy to locate and easy to use
The play control is straightforward and similar to what I have been used to.
I’m more used to symbols for play controls

Please enter a few words why you have given the File Control this rating.
It needs shortcuts to places on my computer
Nothing new about this, using the file control is the same for other software applications which use the same method
I am used to the standard Windows open dialogue therefore found this control easy to use as it conformed to Windows standards.
It have to using open file button, but like other music player, we just select and drag into the play list, then It is working.
It is just the conventional open dialogue used in windows, where most pc users are likely to be expert in this control window
Again, there’s some problems with questionnaire design here. All of these questions need a point of reference. For example, relative to iTunes or WinAmp, this is not a flexible application. It depends on what I want the application to do. For example, if my expectations were to create a flexible playlist according to various criteria, then I would answer accordingly.
It is good to see that the tool is using existing systems that are likely to be familiar to the user, although the method is not elegant it is at least familiar. It would be nice to seeadded functionality such as drag and drop
I didn’t like having to open two different places to play the music but I suppose this would become easier.
The file control was particularly easy to use. I was able to use it intuitively.
It looks to be a familiar Windows style file interface.
I think you need to have drag and drop enabled to get this to work well. I tried to do this and it didn’t work for me
I have used it before in other applications.
Seems a simple enough system, analogous to other file controls in Windows
The file control operates in a similar way to other windows based applications that I am used to. The ability to select multiple files is also very good (some applications don’t allow this)
This was fine, if basic. I know it’s not meant to do this, but drag and drop from Windows Explorer is always nice… And no control of the order of files once in the player. The dialogue did remember where in the directory tree you’d left it, which was a plus.
It was is easy to choose the file/files that I want to play
My experience of this is tainted by my existing use of MS Windows Applications. I would prefer a drag and drop approach, but it is easy to use the method used because it is familiar from other applications. Double clicking on a file in the explorer would also be intuitive, but .mp3 is attached to another app in my OS.
MPV players I use automate storing the files.
IT’S THE SAME TYPE OF FILE CONTROL ON OTHER APPLICATIONS
Again it seemed intuitive and I managed to use it for all the tasks without a problem.
Use to use, but need to be careful not to right click on mouse, as could open other music player automatically.
I found it fiddly – I had to follow the file path from the file button each time I wanted to open a file. I had left the music window open but trying to access the files directly from this window led to the default MP3 player opening them. I guess this would be fixed by making the test application the default association.
Out of all the features, it was the most straightforward.
The file control uses windows standards which I have already invested a great deal of time learning and being familiar with, so using it is intuitive. However, a problem I could foresee in the long term would be organising the music and saving it so you don’t have to open the files every time you use the player – again comparing this with the iTunes experience.
Learning to operate these kinds of file controls is easy for me as I am frequent user of windows kind of dialogs. However this file control does not provide me what I want. I want to open the files from desktop and I can not go to the desktop directly by clicking some desktop icon. However my interaction with file control was clear. I know what to do to open a file from a specified location. However this file control was not very flexible specially when accessing files from some commonly used locations. I can be a skilful user for this file control. But easy to use is still questionable as direct access to some locations is my prioroity.
Hated this about the player – users shouldn’t have to apply such rudimentary techniques to get the list in. A bit of a shocker. Worst feature of the player by far.
File control is a very common feature of Windows so I am very familiar and confident in using it

Please enter a few words why you have given the Volume Control this rating.
You need to press the big bar each time, and it doesn't matter how many times you press the Up/Down buttons. The Up/Down buttons are not in the expected positions.
Nothing new about this, using the file control is the same for other software applications which use the same method
It took me a good minute to work out how to use the volume control. The need to click the correct button and then confirm with another button meant that what is normally a simple task took a lot longer. I also tried to drag the volume control as it looks like a scrollbar. There were also no labels on the volume buttons and in my opinion the volume bar was upside down (the fuller it was the quieter the volume was).
Description is clearly. But when I use the Volume Controller, I need to press two buttons, then I can doing turn down or turn up.
I couldn’t get the volume to adjust. I tried left-clicks, right-clicks, dragging, scroll-wheeling, clicking in and outside the box, clicking on the diver marker. Nothing worked.
As a designer and human factors expert I found this particularly frustrating that I had to do 2 clicks to increase or decrease the sound, I would like a quicker way of moving it right up or down.
I couldn’t get the volume control to work but with nstructions it ought to be easy.
It took me more that I expected to realise how to the volume control works. First, I couldn’t see any indication that these buttons were the ones that control the volume. Second, it usually takes just one button to increase/decrease the volume in other players that I have used. Third, in order to get to the maximum or minimum you need lots of clicks and that’s a bit impractical, in cases you need to turn off/on the volume quickly.
I was not able to adjust the volume in either direction - I assume that the vertical bar to the right of the screen is the volume control.
I had difficulty working out what was the volume control as it wasn’t labelled. I noticed that the bar on the right seemed to move the orange bar up and down but it made no difference to the volume and so I wasn’t sure if changing the volume was a trick task as it didn’t seem to be possible.
I have downloaded this player onto three computers so far and not been able to operate the volume control at all. It looks like it should be easy to use if it worked.
Lack of labels makes it difficult to work out where the volume control actually is. Having to press on two buttons, rather than one, to get the control to work is not user-friendly. Finally, the volume control behaves unlike I expect volume controls to behave from using other sound applications: the expectation is that the control at the top of the column will increase the volume, and the control at the bottom will decrease the volume.
It was hard to work out how to move the volume bar (although the volume indication bar seemed obvious enough). The direction for the loudest and quietest also seemed the wrong way round. Changing the volume was very slow and cumbersome.
Volume control basically didn’t work on my machine (Win XP SP2). Clicking the buttons at top and bottom of what I assume was the volume scale (blue/orange thing) didn’t change anything. Clicking the tall button on the right occasionally moved the orange bar up or down a bit, but very intermittently. So I can’t really evaluate this function.
I could not use the volume control from the first time and I could not recognise it first
The volume control appears to require a 2 button pathway to either increasing or decreasing. It would be better if it used a one click pathway or a click-and-drag.
Havingn been given this extra information, I tried to make the volume control work. It is very counter intuitive requiring two clicks to achieve any change in volume, and the sense of volume up/down is reversed in the interface. Down is up! It is not possible to quickly make volume changes.
It wasn’t obvious that it was even a volume control bar (although previous experience tells you it is) and it didn’t seem to adjust the volume in any discernable way.
I couldn’t work it at all – though I think I know how it SHOULD work
I thought it was this but did not work for me. It would be simply to use if it did work.
I have tried left click, right click, multiple clicks on each button, but nothing seems to happen
As I said previously, it was not clearly labelled and it did not work when I attempted to use it.
The buttons are unlabelled, making the initial learning f the control frustrating. Altering the volume takes 2 mouse clicks for each step of volume which seems unnecessary as most media players allow you to slide a bar and change the volume many steps with . one click. Also, the movement of volume seems counterintuitive as to increase the volume you must click the bottom button and the orange area which appears most prominent moves down – this implies something is decreasing to me. I would not use this volume control in real use, I would prefer to use the physical volume wheel on my laptop.
Inverse display(loud at bottom), and it is annoying to keep pressing the right button
This is the only control I was not able to understand how to operate it. I clicked vaguely here and there as there were no clear instructions on it. However if this control work on some principal I think I can get skilful in using that.
No activity on the volume control/controls. There appear to be three controls and none appear to function as expected. The particular function of each control button is not know as there was no clear markings or label. Even then, this could not be determined by trial and error because the controls don’t seem to work for me.
What volume control? No indication of where it was given and despite pushing every button on the entire panel I Couldn’t get any change in volume! The circled panel above does nothing in my player.
I found the volume control difficult to manipulate, additionally its function was not obvious so I had to experiment with it.

Please enter a few words why you have given the Information Control this rating.
I would prefer to choose the song just once. The selection of the song is different for each piece of information
The year option did not seem to work for me when I selected the mp3 title. It would be nice if I could select the mp3 title and all of the relevant information appeared without having to select the mp3 title each time.
I would have preferred to open the track and receive all the information in one action, rather than having to lookup each attribute in a separate box.
When I using it, there no Year is shown and the Album is wrong.
It has been separated logically and made it easy for the used to understand each part functions
I think there’s some problems with the way you’ve worded this questionnaire: is the questionnaire a commentary on my abilities or on the application’s UI?
Again nothing compared to the itunes version
Some information was not visible, some was. But I wouldn’t really eb interested in this information anyway.
First, for some reason I couldn’t get it to display the year even though I tried a couple of times. Second, I think you cannot view the album info if the song which is in that album is playing at the time. Third, the use of tick boxes, scroll bars and buttons in one window that basically has one functionality (displaying song info) is quite confusing- one suggestion is the use of one method (e.g. double clicking). Fourth, in the “track” part, you can tick more than one boxes (tracks) and it still gives you a number. Last, in my opinion in would be great if, when a song was playing and you clicked on the info button, it displayed all info automatically without requiring you to set up everything yourself.
I could not gain any useful information from this screen. It only showed the title of the track in each of the blue boxes.
Most of the fields seem to work fine except the Year field, which did not display anything when I selected the song name.
I prefer to have all the file information available in one place, rather than having to perform individual tasks to get each bit of information
I could not find all the information I wanted. I was not sure whether I was seeing the information about the correct track as there seemed no way of telling which track was highlighted for some of the options. The track had to be selected for each of the options which made things harder.
I didn’t find that this worked well at all. The more logical behaviour would be to have the all information related to the playing track (or maybe the one selected) appear at once. But here you have to click the track multiple times to get all the info. And only Genre seems to work for me – clicking files in the Year combo doesn’t work. The “Track” section is very badly designed – I assume you mean track number. Why can you select multiple tracks? Why do you have to click OK after selecting them to get the track number? And surely these are the track titles appearing under Artist Name?
It was very easy to me to use the information control and it was very clear and understandable
Many existing mp3 players do this automatically without the need to click and search. It seems an inefficient method by comparison with market leaders.
Different modes of input were required to retrieve different pieces of information. Too much input was required to receive the information.
The interface looks a biting confusing. If I click on most of the buttons there is no response. A instruction is needed for me to understand them
I didn’t seem able to pull up the information the instructions said I could pull up.
There were too many different methods to get the information. I failed to retrieve one piece of info as it didn’t seem to work
I did not have a good time on this, it was going well then I found I could not change things that needed to be changed; entering year, title and album
Everything worked except for the year. I guess I’d like all information to come up in one click or a display button for each component.
It becomes a bit tedious if you have to keep clicking search for it to search for the artist name or track number
I am comparing this to the information control in iTunes which is easier to use as all of the track info appears at once, whereas in the above player you must select each individual piece of info – sometimes this can lead to information from multiple tracks appearing in the same window which is very confusing. The Year window had no way I could find of confirming the choice and displaying the year. Very frustrating to use.
Not able to get year. Find album for a track I am not listening to.
Over this control was easy to find as I don’t have to find some thing to do. All the information about music files is in front of me.
Liked the IC, but its buggy and didn’t give proper info…..so someone didn’t the coding properly. Sorry
The information control was not straightforward and not very easy to use.