stevenf:

Android Video Player:

I’m sure displaying thumbnails of the first frame instead of names seemed like a good idea at the time, but…

What.

Even YouTube, for all its faults, understands that the first frame of a video is almost never a good poster frame. YouTube by default grabs the middle frame, which isn’t always the best choice, but at least it isn’t usually an empty black square.

Google, which owns YouTube, is also responsible for Android. I wouldn’t expect two teams in such a large company to collaborate, exactly, but is it unreasonable to expect a designer to be familiar with his own company’s products, especially those that are the most similar to the one he is designing? If not to do better, then at least to do no worse?

Actually, you know what? Fuck it. They should collaborate, or at the very least be guided by a uniform design philosophy, big company or no. Apple is nearly twice the size of Google, yet they maintain four distinct media player UIs across multiple platforms (iPod classic, iPod nano, iPhone, and iTunes) that are nonetheless remarkably consistent. Different, yes, but there are no major, shocking stupidities like this when moving from one to another.

“Stupidities” is a good word, because that’s what bad UI design does: it makes you look stupid.