Mute check box is at wrong end of volume slider in Sound Preferences

[Jonathon Hodges]

I friend of mine rang me today to ask why their microphone didn't work in Karmic. I asked them to check that the input volume and I got them to turn it up and the microphone now works.

They did not do this for themselves because the mute check box is at the right hand (loud) end of the slider. They had assumed (wrongly) that this meant it was the quiet end.

Furthermore, I've noticed that when you slide the slider all the way to the LEFT, the Mute checkbox automatically ticks, at the RIGHT hand end. This seems contradictory.

As sound is an area in which Linux is perceived to perform poorly, I vote that this small issue is cleaned up.

Kind regards,
Jon

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

+1 Jonathon

[Rich Jones (richwjones)]

I understand your logic, but I think it might actually be more usable on the right. If the slider is already all the way to the left, then it is functionally muted.

[David Siegel (djsiegel-deactivatedaccount)]

The mute checkbox occurs on the RHS of the slider in many other contexts, so it would have to be changed everywhere.

Placing the mute checkbox on the RHS is not obviously a usability flaw, and although it might make the volume control more intelligible to your friend, it will break the habits of many more people who have learned where this checkbox is and wouldn't consider it an improvement to have it moved to the LHS.

[Jonathon Hodges (jonblondie)]

Good point David, thank you for your time. Please keep up the good work, it's a really worthy cause.
Jonathon

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Closing the gnome-media task too, for the same reason quoted by djsiegel above