{"id":224,"date":"2009-11-09T16:38:15","date_gmt":"2009-11-09T15:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/?p=224"},"modified":"2019-11-06T17:45:04","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T16:45:04","slug":"shh-iphone-gaming-should-respect-your-sound-settings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/09\/shh-iphone-gaming-should-respect-your-sound-settings\/","title":{"rendered":"Shh! iPhone gaming should respect your sound settings"},"content":{"rendered":"

This one may be hard to illustrate, but it should be one of the first items on the checklist for developers, and is often missed. Let\u2019s use a scenario to illustrate it, painting vivid pictures in your mind!<\/p>\n

\n

You\u2019re sat in a lecture, and the topic is domestic life in 14th<\/sup> Century Catalonia (We don\u2019t know why you\u2019re here, you are a computing student. Maybe you thought there would be sandwiches). It\u2019s dull. You\u2019ve tried to check twitter, no internet connection. Time to play a game on the iPhone then, I guess. Check the phones on silent, yep the switch is flicked. Ok, time to rock!<\/p>\n

\n\"quiet<\/div>\n

Oh no \u2013 its playing the Marble Zone theme<\/a> at full volume! We\u2019ve been foiled, and you\u2019ll never get the sandwiches now!<\/p>\n

\n

So what went wrong? Despite having the phone set to silent, the game still had sound. Depending on how diligent the coders were, this has been an issue with the iPhone for a while, as the iPhone won\u2019t automatically silence apps when set to silent \u2013 this has to be manually coded. Quick ports or just forgetful coders (usually working in small teams) can miss this.<\/p>\n

This becomes an issue because of user expectations \u2013 they\u2019d expect the silent switch to work globally, and will be surprised and frustrated when this isn\u2019t the case. As seen in the scenario above, it can lead to the user being embarrassed and worse of all (according to Alan Cooper) feeling stupid!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not simply a \u2018design choice\u2019, as a logical look at the situation will tell us. Not only would manually setting the desired volume settings inside an application duplicate functionality that is already implemented in a much more functional manner on the device itself, but I can also think of no scenario where a user would want their phone on silent, but their game to make sounds. It\u2019s just poor design.<\/p>\n

\"quiet\"<\/div>\n

So in summary\u2026 just don\u2019t do it app designers!<\/p>\n

(Also while you\u2019re at it, let me listen to my own music in game!)<\/p>\n

Who does this well?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"doom\"<\/div>\n

\u00a0A lot of games to be honest, as its not really a \u2018do well\u2019 thing, rather its just done or not done. So lets talk about Doom Classic, as it does do this. John Carmack\u2019s finally (6 months after it was \u201calmost ready\u201d) released his port of the original Doom for the iPhone. Control issues aside, it\u2019s a faithful port, and includes WiFi multiplayer. Its Doom, so you know what you\u2019re getting, and its just as fun as it was 15 years ago. More relevant, it does respect the silent switch on your iPhone, so I\u2019m justified in talking about it here! We\u2019re all looking forward to when Carmack starts on his port of Quake.<\/p>\n

Who does this badly?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Hook-Champ\"<\/div>\n

Hook Champ, from Rocket Cat Games, is a fun platformer where the only means of getting anywhere fast involves swinging from the ceiling, over lava, through brick walls and away from the scary cursed..fish thing. Its fun, recreating the opening scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. It\u2019s just a pity that the game ignores your silent switch, and so plays at full volume regardless of your iPhone\u2019s settings. You can set the volume in game. But you shouldn\u2019t have too. A disappointing oversight!<\/p>\n

Another offender is Sonic 1, but I didn\u2019t feature that as I\u2019ve already talked about it in a previous post (link to previous post). Oh dear!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also, just quickly, thanks to Brian Franklin from WebHostingSearch for featuring this blog in their \u201920 Great UX blogs\u2019<\/a>. Rather unexpected, but thanks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This one may be hard to illustrate, but it should be one of the first items on the checklist for developers, and is often missed. Let\u2019s use a scenario to illustrate it, painting vivid pictures in your mind! You\u2019re sat in a lecture, and the topic is domestic life in 14th Century Catalonia (We don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games-user-research","grve-entry-item","grve-blog-item"],"yoast_head":"\nShh! iPhone gaming should respect your sound settings - Steve Bromley - User Research<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/09\/shh-iphone-gaming-should-respect-your-sound-settings\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shh! iPhone gaming should respect your sound settings - Steve Bromley - User Research\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This one may be hard to illustrate, but it should be one of the first items on the checklist for developers, and is often missed. 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