Angled Whiteboards

When we introduced 3.5’s enhanced download manager (back in December), we knew that people would appreciate the additional level of control. But we also knew that there might be a slight bit of controversy surrounding our decision to make the download manager work in a Last In, First Out (LIFO) manner — meaning, when you are downloading a game, any subsequent downloads replace the existing download and push it further down the queue.

We chose LIFO for a couple of reasons. Because a large chunk of our gameplay is initiated from the web, we wanted to make sure that when someone clicked the Play button, they weren’t launching the player and sticking the game in a queue. Play should mean play. We also wanted to keep in mind the user who starts up a DiRT download, realizes that it might take a minute or two (ha), and decides to get a quick game of Joust in.

When 3.5 hit beta we started getting some feedback about our decision. “Why can’t the download queue work the other way?” “Now I have to think too hard about my download order.” Others were less frustrated with the addition but mentioned that they wouldn’t mind at least having the option to switch to FIFO when they needed it. So we did some experimentation. We worked through a global setting that simply switched everything from LIFO to FIFO — the messaging was too weird, and we couldn’t control it as easily and dynamically on the web. So 3.5 went out with LIFO. And we waited to see whether non-beta users would notice.

Of course non-beta users noticed! In fact, we came very close to including the discussed two-button option in a January update, but were concerned that having a button that said “Download Now” and another that said “Add to Queue” was a) too difficult to fit into the allocated download button area:

And b) had the potential to confuse things for large majority of users (borne out in usability testing) who don’t even realize there IS a download manager.

But then I ended up having an IM conversation with longtime beta tester and moderator macnbc. And he did it. He cracked the code:

So as of the Player update that went out a week or so ago, we’ve got a FIFO v LIFO setting in the Download Options dialog. Advanced users (like the ones who made it to the end of this post) can switch it on to enable the option of FIFO downloading on each and every Infocard. Another bonus of this implementation is that we’ve got plenty of room to explain the setting in the Download Options dialog — putting less of a messaging burden on the buttons themselves (and letting us get away with the slightly less obvious “Queue It” button label:

This isn’t the first time we’ve received help from our community in terms of design, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Thanks again, guys!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 9:34 am and is filed under Uncategorized, Design Paths, From the Suggestion Box.