Don't forget, is it linear or logarithmic? It baffles me that it's 2017 and people who implement volume sliders never even consider that the obvious choice might not be the best...

Well logarithmic doesn't make sense, because it never gets to zero. However something like p^0.42 (sound pressure with an exponent<1) works well because it is similar to the perceived sound level. An interesting connection is that the power function "becomes" a logarithm as the exponent goes to zero.

Log/lin depends on your target market a lot I think. I don't know, but I imagine, audio engineers and the like would be expecting a logarithmic scale for their volume knobs.

I make guitar pedals sometimes, I've never seen a volume knob not be a logarithmic potentiometer.

> An interesting connection is that the power function "becomes" a logarithm as the exponent goes to zero.

Logarithms are infinitesimal exponentials -- x log x grows faster than x but slower than x^{1+ε} for any real positive ε.

They make an interesting counterpoint to the philosophy that infinitesimal quantities can't exist in "real" mathematics.

I don't know if it's a bug with Windows or my headset, but my headset actually does make sound at 0 on windows. I get an extra button press on my headset volume controls or my keyboard volume controls to actually mute it.

I get the same thing. I'm not near my headset right now to check, but what is your model?

Corsair Vengeance 1500

Ah yes - log/lin is one that I forgot to mention in my original list. It is a HUGE factor.

Too low, too low, too low, ears bleeding. Thanks, PulseAudio for teaching me the difference between log and lin

Volume is a percentage, and a very analog control. The idea that you would have to have a round knob to twist on a computer screen is ridiculous, almost like some imaginary need for a specific shutter button to press to take a photo on a phone (just touch the screen!).

It's a one-dimensional value, make it a one-dimensional control. Slider. Done.

> almost like some imaginary need for a specific shutter button to press to take a photo on a phone (just touch the screen!).

I've always wanted a shutter button on my phone, because of what it would imply: the ability to take a picture instantaneously, as the first action that wakes the phone from sleep. I often miss shots because of the six seconds required to get from my phone being in my pocket to having the Camera app open.

Got an iPhone?

1. Pull out phone. 2. Press power button. 3. Swipe the time left (don't unlock) 4. Press volume down button to take photo.

Two seconds tops from photo op to photo!

Note: You don't have to swipe the time, you just want to avoid swiping a reminder and the time is an easy and guaranteed-to-work target.

You're missing the point. All phones have a camera shortcut.

OP's point is you shouldn't even have to have an additional step, however short it is.

Imagine though the millions of photos a phone would shoot in a pocket.

My xperia has a dedicated camera button.

Certainly a better way, but my gripe above is not just with volume buttons but with other things such as EQ, panning, time delays and a million other things that audio software can control.

I am guessing that screen UX designers wrestle with the same constraints that physical audio hardware manufacturers to - that of space restriction, and cramming as much as they can into a given space.

Hence I guess why things like recording consoles have a slider for the critical volume adjustments, but rotating knobs for other things like panning, EQ etc. above that.

Volume is one thing I don't mind seeing as a vertical slider, but then would panning be a horizontal slider? I actually prefer a round knob for that because the knob position is a better resemblance of the 360deg sensory perception around my head when setting the stereo space.

Albeit a true 2D control surface works much better. (A control rectangle which is a cross product of two sliders.) Pan cannot give you 2D positioning, even when combined with loudness or approximation thereof.

To be honest, I prefer the physical shutter button over tapping my screen on my phone when taking pictures.

Especially since screen tapping could be registering a "refocus to this point" action. Also since camera phones have no viewfinder, I use the screen to compose my shot. So to avoid obscuring what I am going to take a picture of, I keep my hand clear of the screen most of the time. That makes the act of triggering the shutter a more visible and deliberate act than just pushing a button that my finger is already touching. These probably don't matter to most people but are fairly frustrating to me. (the fact that I almost always shoot landscape, not portrait, may be the cause of the discomfort for me, since it changes my hold on my phone to something more like the hold on a camera.)

With most sensors having a 4:3 aspect ratio and smartphone displays having a 16:9 (or wider) AR, there is no need to block the image being composed with any fingers. The blank areas are filled with all relevant controls and a virtual shutter release button.

I don't believe the parent meant a physical shutter button, but a specific area on screen designated as the shutter button instead of the much easier, "anywhere".

Well, having "anywhere" be the shutter button means tap to focus won't work.

Use the volume down button on an iPhone.

In landscape orientation, stock Android "helpfully" keeps the shutter button on the right side of the screen at all times even if you rotate it. Because left-handed people never take photos. -_-

On many (most?) phones, the volume buttons act as a physical shutter button. I don't recall the last phone I saw which doesn't have this feature. iPhone, various android phones...

Or a UI control mimicking an old-style rotary dial in a phone app. (Although to be fair, the rotary dial in old phones was terrible UX brought about by a purely technical design decision - on the other hand a physical volume dial in a real amplifier is a pretty intuitive control.)

what's the second dimension on rotation? you can completely describe it using the angle.

Sliders take up more space for the same "travel" though.

A thought: have you ever seen a knob that actually turns by doing a two-fingered rotation gesture on a trackpad while hovered over it? I think that's the only skeuomorphic knob I'd actually be happy with.

That is another UX quandary. A lot of the problems I mentioned in my OP would go away if everyone used the standard two finger twist gesture on the screen to 'turn' it up or down.

However, if I try and use thumb and forefinger as normal, I cannot get my thumb especially to stay in skin contact with the screen easily - the nail comes into play, losing the double touch on the screen.

Using forefinger and middle finger together works better, but makes twisting past a 180 degree turn very difficult.

By far, the better solution is the car audio control I posted elsewhere in this thread, which uses multiple finger PLUS slide gestures - but that UI can take up the whole screen just to manipulate a single parameter.

Skeuomorphic interfaces should just be banned forever. What is so wrong about simple numerical input? Not cool enough? Want a darn analog VU meter to go with it?

If you are working with audio a lot, then most of the time, the numbers are meaningless, and you are going by 'feel' and using your ears as the sensory feedback mechanism.

Can you tell me how many dB's you need to set your volume at in your office environment in order to be able to hear above the background hubbub? At home? In the car? That sort of thing changes from day to day and situation to situation.

Very often when I plug in my guitar into my amp, I will twiddle the knobs without even looking at the respective numbers. I just know that I have to adjust the bass, middle or treble EQ to suit the room, and will do so without looking. Often if I get a setting that sounds really sweet, I will look at, and write down the settings for future reference, but it is all done after the fact.

The same goes for if I am using a software amp modelling sim on my PC or iPad etc. Twiddle while listening, then save the snapshot later if I am happy with it. I don't want a finicky interface to get in the way of my experimenting and twiddling.

And yes, VU meters are also extremely useful when recording etc. in order to get a real time view of peaks and spikes in an audio track. Ask anybody who uses a DAW regularly.

> Does this knob work by sliding up/down or in a circular fashion? Or accept both ways?

Or sliding left/right. I've seen that too.

My personal favorite design, and I can't remember where I saw it used, was a scroll wheel centric version where you hover and scroll to adjust volume, with a bubble appearing above with current setting

I think it was on a UI portfolio. Not a production effort

Not sure how well it would work with a trackpad though. Worked great on a mouse with an obvious "tick" feedback in the scroll wheel though!