Let me first clarify that I love the functionality of Roon and am constantly impressed with its functionality and performance, and that I’m not just mindlessly trying to complain.
What I’m not so impressed with is the user interface, especially on mobile. I don’t mean the overall aesthetic (which I think is pretty nice) but the level of refinement. For an application that puts so much focus on experience music with metadata and costs as much as it does, I think there are a lot of little tweaks that could be done to improve the experience, especially on mobile.
Iconography is very blurry, fonts look weird and thin lines don’t seem to scale well. Just look at this screenshot taken on my iPhone XS Max. Lots of tiny scaling issues, with low-res resources and touch targets that are too small.
Then there’s other little things like weird scrolling behaviour that doesn’t bounce or flick properly and doesn’t match the rest of the OS, as well as non-native inputs and menus. These things all add upp to provide a lesser user experience than other similar apps on the platform, like Sonos and BluOS. This discrepancy is not as big on desktop (mainly because competing apps are also pretty bad on macOS) but it’s there, although using a mouse and keyboard helps too.
I’m a developer myself and I fully understand the reasoning behind providing a unified non-native app from a developer standpoint. The user benefits we get in terms of functionality are very clear too, but I do think Roon could do more for the user experience. What are your thoughts on this?
Edit to include some clarifications posted below:
The general aesthetic should still be the same, but there are different levels of polish as I see it:
Fix the visual bugs outlined above (I.e. make what we currently have look as good as it can)
Tailor the UI to fit the screen size and input type (rearrange screens, increase touch targets)
Create a fully native UI (native scrolling behaviors, native inputs, respect UI guidelines for the platform)
Many multi-platform apps seem to get stuck between step 2 and step 3. They look about right, but feel out of place due to the nature of the tech stack involved. They are however better than the current state of Roon. I’d like Roon to be a 3 given the scope and price of the application—an UI to match it’s excellent functionality—but I think even step 1 would make a big difference in the experience. There’s some low hanging fruit here.
I don’t have any issues with the UI really. Some of the newer refreshes seem at odds with the older design but that’s what happens when you update it in stages. If I had one gripe it’s the scroll bars as they do seem to work in the opposite way they should not sure why.
Perhaps some of these issues exist for mobile devices. However, on the control devices I use (iPad, Windows 10 laptop and Windows 10 PC), I find that the display, fonts and font sizes are pretty much perfect.
If something can be done to aid small screen devices than that would be great, but from a selfish perspective I would not want the display to be compromised for the larger control devices that I am sure that most of us use.
1 Like
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
4
I wonder if it looks better on a Surface device, where presumably the Roon app tech would be native?
I’m not sure what options they have or how much work would be involved, but it’s a fact that Roon isn’t as well adapted to the platforms it’s running on as it’s competitors like BluOS, Sonos or Plex. And even those are pretty bad on desktop.
Roon has developed a broadly similar look and feel UI across devices. Do people think that is desirable, or would you prefer a separate “small screen” UI that is better adapted to the limitations of phones etc ?
I’d definitely prefer a small screen UI version for mobile phones. Tailored experiences are better in my opinion. Of course it adds work, especially when ramping up those versions.
Tailored experiences all the way for me, but I too understand that this could mean no app at all for some platforms because of the work involved.
The general aesthetic should still be the same, but there are different levels of polish as I see it:
Fix the visual bugs outlined above (I.e. make what we currently have look as good as it can)
Tailor the UI to fit the screen size and input type (rearrange screens, increase touch targets)
Create a fully native UI (native scrolling behaviors, native inputs, respect UI guidelines for the platform)
Many multi-platform apps seem to get stuck between step 2 and step 3. They look about right, but feel out of place due to the nature of the tech stack involved. They are however better than the current state of Roon. I’d like Roon to be a 3 given the scope and price of the application—an UI to match it’s excellent functionality—but I think even step 1 would make a big difference in the experience. There’s some low hanging fruit here.
Yes, there are some flaws. The feel is not like native apps on Apple devices (can’t speak for other brands).
Some expected behaviour is not consequent implemented: on the iPad I can scroll vertically through the latest additions with a swipe,
on the artist page I have to use an icon to scroll through the albums.
There are several mismatches like these which could be improved.
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
12
Agreed, even in the windows desktop version. I have a 24-inch touch monitor and it’s still hard to hit some of the “buttons.” The main one that adds weirdness is the full screen button that is in the hamburger main menu - if you miss it, it brings up the profile selection popup. Kind of odd.
Yes. The Roon phone app is not good. It’s obvious that the application was directly ported across to the tiny screen and this does not translate to a great user experience. Too much screen / menu overlap, doesn’t utilize normal Android navigation, it’s slow to navigate because artwork takes up a significant amount of space unnecessarily, I could go on.
While the idea that I can jump between devices without retraining myself is good in theory it doesn’t translate well here. Spending some time with any other vendors app (Spotify, Tidal, BlueOS, Naim, etc. etc. etc.) and then jumping back into Roon it should be pretty obvious why those vendors have built specific small screen apps. Microsoft once decided that the same UI should be used on the desktop, tablet, and phone. They were wrong. They were hilariously wrong (original Windows 10? Windows Phone? these things are dead). Optimize for the screen real-estate first and foremost. It’s OK if that means different experiences based upon what you’re sitting in front of.
I can’t access the dsp menu on android phone. When the track is playing and I access the quality indicator , i can’t see dsp option.
Works fine on iPad and pc … is this a screen rendering issue?
Thx
For a mobile App, Roon is stunning. It’s built on top of a 3D gaming engine for portability—a very smart move on the part of Roon—and there engine can run on almost any device—desktop, laptop, or mobile—that currently exists with any recent OS. Given that, I think a few blurred lines—which I don’t see at all in your screen grab—is really no big deal, like no big deal at all???
It depends on a ton of things like the version of the OS, the specific phone you have, the version of the Roon App, etc, etc. No, I don’t work for Roon, never have.
