NED Usability and Overview

MPV tutorials are great to watch. They're nicely structured, in a didactical sensible way. I learned a lot and I'm constantly buying more tutorials as I'm interested in more and more things. You just keep the good stuff coming. :)

I have 2 use cases though I'd like to present:

1)
By now, I really bought a lot of tutorials. And I can't possibly keep everything in my head. You know how it goes. You see something, and you think it's great, you try it out, it works. Then, you don't need this tip for some time. And when it comes down to it, you remember there was this one video in the Logic series somewhere. And you begin to look for it.

2)
I'm interested in a topic, buy one or maybe even more tutorials, start watching them, then I have to pause as there's much to do elsewhere. I forget about it.

In all cases somebody fires up NED to watch a tutorial it should be quick and easy. What does one want? Based on the above use cases I put together my personal list of functions NED should have.

- Logging in with the personal account
- See which tutorials are available in this account
- See which tutorials are downloaded or are being downloaded
- See which videos I already watched through, or partly, or not at all
- See which videos I have favorited
- Jump to a video and play it

- and maybe see what other tutorials there are, look at the 10% demo content and buy directly from the app or get directed to the website, buy them there, return to the app and have them available.

But there are several things that kept bugging me for all versions of NED so far.

NED is not quick and easy
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In fact NED requires sooooo many clicks to do anything useful at all. When I start NED, it jumps to Downloads and Admin. It keeps all folders I opened open. But the list is terribly confusing. I'd like to see a clean list of tutorials I can open. But instead I get a bold title with the technical title "Logic 104" and then below, indented, italic, the real human readable title "Flex Time Editing". This makes the list hard to read. Indented, italic, different font size, not bold. It's hard to keep the overview.

To get to my first video, I have to open the folder (click one) only to see the human readable title again. Why? So I have to waste another click (click two) to open the sections within "Flex Time Editing".

Then I have to open the section (click three) and then click on the video I'd like to see (click four).

SUGGESTION: Name the course all in one: "Logic 104: Flex Time Editing" all on one line, all with the same font.

SUGGESTION: Below the course, list ALL videos. Maybe there will be sections, but only use sections as "separators". Or headings. But list ALL videos on this level. So with one click you can open all videos, you see all sections at a glance, and you don't waste any clicks.

SUGGESTION: Show with a little icon indicator (like in itunes) if the video has been watched (empty circle), partly watched (half filled circle), or is unwatched (filled circle). This way I can see at one glance where I stopped watching this particular course if I jumped around different courses.

SUGGESTION: Stop remembering only ONE playback position and stop ask users every time they change a video if they want to forget current playback position. Remember playback positions for each video individually. Like iTunes does with podcasts. In iTunes I can see at a glance where I have unwatched episodes, with one click I can open the podcast and see unwatched or partly watched episodes and start or continue watching. Two clicks are necessary.

SUGGESTION: Add star icon indicators to each video. Similar to the circles that indicate if a video is unwatched, partly watched or watched, have a star that indicates a favorite. Sometimes, there are really cool tips and clever gems in a video. If one can add a star, it's easier to find it again. I know it's available on NEDweb, but a software should feel the same on all platforms and have all the features. Sync favorites with the web app (you are logged in anyway and could exchange data, so why not do it?).

NED for iPad is the same way
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I'm having a really hard time navigating through all the different folders. For use case 1 I have to dig through all the folders, sub folders, sub sub folders and so on on the iPad just to find this one video. At least I don't get asked if I want to forget playback position.

SUGGESTION: Like above, only have the course listed on the left. One click shows you ALL videos divided by separators maybe. But having these sub sub sub folders is very hard to navigate, it's hard remembering where you were when you come back one week later. You have no indicators where you stopped so you have to try to remember what the last video was you've seen. It would be nice to have the same iTunes like indicators here. And also, if one would be able to set favorite markers (stars). And sync this with MPV and thus all other NED apps.

This way, with the indicators, I would have one long list of videos, but I'd exactly see which one I've watched, where I stopped, where there are videos I haven't watched (of course I could mark a video as watched or unwatched manually). All from one list that is very clean and I can flip through a long list with my finger anyway. This would be no problem. But going down into a folder, down again, nope, back up, up, next folder down... basically I feel like a directory crawler most of the time :)

SUGGESTION: Sync playback positions. I really like this feature on the Kindle where you can just continue watching where you left off, even if you switch the device from a Kindle to the iPhone, iPad and back. Why not synchronize positions where you stopped a video throughout all the devices?

Over all I'd very much like see NED support people with visual indicators and a better, cleaner overview of all videos at one time without having to drill down into deeeeep nested folder structures. I'd like to use NED as it was intended: in a NON LINEAR way :)

I start watching a video here, I stop, I jump over to another tutorial as I need to look up something there, I continue watching there, then jump back to the previous tutorial, ehm, where did I leave? Ah yeah, right here, continue. Oh, where was that nice tip about Logic's folders? Ah, right here with the star...

This would really be a power app that allows to manage my own playback positions and where I keep the overview even if I have 30+ extensive tutorials in my library. Currently, I'm having trouble following 10 or even 5. Let alone managing the gems in over 30+ tutorials I bought.

Thanks for reading so far. I'd really like to see some of the suggestions implemented. As I stop watching tutorials because I get frustrated with all the fiddling, searching and so on. I always need a pen and paper to write this down in what folder I was, what video I watched, to be able to get back. This is not how it should be, I think.

Best regards,
Chris

This is some really great feedback!

I think we could implement quite a few of your suggestions.

I really like your idea of syncing playback positions across all NED devices, I don't know why we never thought of this.

Thanks :) I made some mockups to better visualise what I meant. Sorry they're for iPad but the ideas are the same. It would be really great if all N.E.D. applications on Mac, iPad and iPhone and the web player had the same functions at the same place, so it's easy to switch between all of those without having to look for the buttons. So, here is my iPad mockup (even though this is the Mac forum).



This is how a screen could look like with ALL videos I own or have access to on MPV. As I'm not a subscriber so in this case I only see the tutorials I bought.

I can quickly scroll through the list alphabetically and see what I own. Regardless of the fact if I downloaded this video to my device or not. If I own a lot of videos, I could use the search and filters.

Already here you see if there are unwatched videos left in this tutorial. So you know if it's worth opening it and watching anything you haven't seen.

Maybe it would be also good at this level using stars to bookmark whole tutorials and on the left have a bookmarks section or favorite section. Something like "Your Bookmarks" or "Your Favorites". There's enough space there currently. And it's not so crowded. This would help if you really have a LOT of tutorials and want to only see the ones in the list you're currently watching.



When you tapped on a video (only one click), you're taken to everything this tutorial has to offer. You can search, you can filter for favorites, you can see if this video is downloaded to your device (iPad, iPhone, N.E.D. for Mac).

Everything is in this flat hierarchy. You see all the chapters and sections but all titles and all videos are available to you here. You can quickly scroll through all videos without having to drill down deep. You see what videos are your favorites, you see if you've watched them (see last 3 videos, they work like iTunes, no ball for watched videos, half filled ball for partly watched videos and fully filled ball for unwatched videos). Of course one could mark a video as unwatched if one chooses to do so.

This interface would also allow to quickly add a note by tapping the pencil icon. And by tapping the arrow at the end you can watch the video. You see how long the videos are so you know if you can still watch it before having to leave for work ;)

With only one tap on the star you can favorite / unfavorite a video. With one tap on the pencil you bring up the notes window. See next image.



By clicking on the pencil you can quickly add a note or see notes you've already taken. You can also filter to see only videos in this list that actually have notes or that are your favorite for quick access.

The pencil could be grayed-out if there is no note. Tapping it and entering only one character to it would make it colorful, so you'd know at a glance where those notes are even without filtering.

This would allow to access all videos much quicker. Of course this is no masterpiece, only a quick mockup to show what I mean by only needing 1 click to access the whole tutorial, quickly scrolling through everything, seeing what videos I haven't yet watched, adding favorites and so on. Playback positions, watched or unwatched statuses, favorites and notes would sync with MPV's servers and would propagate to any other devices as well (iPhone, Mac N.E.D. client, N.E.D.web...). So everywhere I log in to MPV I have the same state of things and can continue where I left off. That would be so cool :)

What do you think? Do you think this could be something?

Chris

A bit of what you pointed out there is already in the update to the iOS NED (You no longer have to dive through the video display). Unfortunately we are still waiting on apple to approve it.

Everything else wouldn't be too hard to implement, once the next update gets through. Who knows, you might be looking at something that looks very similar to what you laid out!

Glad I could add some ideas to the much appreciated MPV service of yours.

Awesome feedback Chris. This is great work. Once the new update is out we'll look into some of your ideas.

Thanks.
Skye