• @[email protected]
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    10 months ago

    Down is next because it’s a list of songs with the first song at the top and the last at the bottom.

    Frankly it’s the orientation that makes the most sense when you consider it given most people will be listening from a streaming service, but back when CDs were a thing the songs weren’t considered a list but tracks numbered from 1 to n. The up button incremented the track number and so it made sense for up to be next.

    Going even further to tapes, fast forward and rewind literally moved the tape left to right/right to left, and so it made sense for them to be right and left respectively, however now it makes less sense other than being what older people are used to

    • gordon
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      110 months ago

      Having grown up in the tape era, the right button being next / fast forward just make sense.

      I can see on a screen that you’d scroll down to get to the bottom of a playlist, but isn’t your finger moving up?

      This is the classic problem of inverted vertical controls or not?

      Just avoid it altogether and make the back / skip button left / right respectively, and volume be up / down which just makes obvious sense.

      • @[email protected]
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        210 months ago

        It’s not scrolling though - using the arrow keys on a keyboard or d-pad on a controller you’d use up to go up and down to go down when navigating documents, menus etc. As far as I’m aware unlike when you’re moving a viewport either by scrolling or in games there’s no debate when it comes to moving a caret.

        And as you said, “having grown up in the tape era”. Just because it was logical for that application and so is logical to you doesn’t mean it’s still logical - people who grew up with record players could just as easily argue for two spinning knobs as you’re moving a potentiometer to increase/decrease the volume, and spinning the record forward/back; having grown up in the CD era I had both of them being up/down or left/right as the buttons were either beneath or either side of the slot/hatch most of the time, same with tv remotes having both as up/down, and given there was no standard then I don’t think either one “just makes sense”