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The user is expected to make linear movements to operate a rotary control. This is the reason that most properly-designed applications utilize linear slide cont

The user is expected to make linear movements to operate a rotary control. This is the reason that most properly-designed applications utilize linear slide controls for similar functions. I hate this UI paradigm. There are a bunch of graphic design apps on iOS that do this (e.g. Affinity Designer) where you can change something like line width. The icon shows a circle filling up as you change the property (it’s rotary so it’s the circle “ring” filling up, not the disk). Except it expects you to move your finger linearly to change the property, not in a rotary fashion so it’s very confusing. Also you can move your finger linearly up and down OR left and right. These movements are not exclusive of one another so you can move your finger in a rotary pattern and then wonder why the line width changes seemingly at random.

IggleSniggle 8y ago
To make it worse, some rotaries actually ARE implemented as rotaries, so even if you’ve been trained on a linear rotary you still may be confused by the interface when it’s implemented “correctly.”
- Pulcinella 8y ago
  You also have actual rotaries that are just buggy where the rotary spins 0-100% and instead of stopping at 100% it will instantly jump back down to zero when you complete the full 360°. I feel like a rotary should “adjust” a value up or down rather than representing absolute values.
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    Maybe the rotary should just be replaced by a normal or led slider. Not fancy enough? It is about just as imprecise.
Synaesthesia 8y ago
This is fairly common for music creation apps which have a lot of knobs, and it makes sense because a knob doesn’t work so well with a mouse as dragging up and down. It’s not immediately obvious though
- qt4apologist 8y ago
  But wouldn't it make more sense to not have rotary knobs since they are so confusing with a point and click interface?
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Not if you work with both physical and virtual hardware. Looking at a physical control board, you can see at a glance where a group of knobs are positioned. Being able to then glance at a screen and get similar information instantly is important for workflow.
  - improv32 8y ago
    For most DAWs the primary control surface is usually a physical MIDI device that has real physical rotary encoders, which you would map to the virtual rotaries on the pretty interface. So it's more intuitive to have both be a rotary.

IggleSniggle 8y ago

To make it worse, some rotaries actually ARE implemented as rotaries, so even if you’ve been trained on a linear rotary you still may be confused by the interface when it’s implemented “correctly.”

Pulcinella 8y ago
You also have actual rotaries that are just buggy where the rotary spins 0-100% and instead of stopping at 100% it will instantly jump back down to zero when you complete the full 360°. I feel like a rotary should “adjust” a value up or down rather than representing absolute values.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Maybe the rotary should just be replaced by a normal or led slider. Not fancy enough? It is about just as imprecise.

Synaesthesia 8y ago

This is fairly common for music creation apps which have a lot of knobs, and it makes sense because a knob doesn’t work so well with a mouse as dragging up and down. It’s not immediately obvious though

qt4apologist 8y ago
But wouldn't it make more sense to not have rotary knobs since they are so confusing with a point and click interface?
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Not if you work with both physical and virtual hardware. Looking at a physical control board, you can see at a glance where a group of knobs are positioned. Being able to then glance at a screen and get similar information instantly is important for workflow.
- improv32 8y ago
  For most DAWs the primary control surface is usually a physical MIDI device that has real physical rotary encoders, which you would map to the virtual rotaries on the pretty interface. So it's more intuitive to have both be a rotary.