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    Music Software & Bad Interface Design: Avid’s Sibelius

    Tantacrul

    8 HN recommenders · recommended in 16 months, 2019–2026

    YouTube

    21:35 · 1.7M views · Nov 15, 2018

    Tantacrul dissects the UX and UI of Avid's Sibelius music notation software, going through a long list of bad design choices. The review is both a comic rant and a practical lesson in interface design.

    Recommended as the most entertaining serious critique of a software interface, and a crash course in UX mistakes.

    Design, Graphics & Visual MediaUX & UI designMusic theory, synthesis & production
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    16 comments from Hacker News

    1. @btownOct 2021· in “‘Jean Sibelius’ Review: An Early Finale”

      Since Sibelius and Finale are two industry-leading (and very much competing) music notation software systems, this headline made me do a quadruple-take! [LINK] [LINK] For those interested in (extremely entertaining) breakdowns of the Sibelius software and other offerings in this space from a UI/UX design perspective, I highly recommend Tantacrul's videos, which propelled him to becoming the head designer for MuseScore and Audacity. IMO, this and his Dorico video are must-watch crash-courses for any developer touching UX design, even outside of music! this video

      Strongly recommendsView on HN
    2. @wexqMay 2021· in “Audacity Aquired by Muse Group”

      OSS needs more UI/UX people, and I think Tantacrul is fantastic for this. His twitter ( [LINK] ) and youtube ( [LINK] ) are full of interesting tidbits, an you can tell he's passionate about things. Even if you don't do music/notation his video on Sibelius, this video , is ridiculously funny, but also on point.

      Strongly recommendsView on HN
    3. @l__lJul 2023· in “MuseScore 4.1 is now available”

      If anyone is yet to see it, Tantacrul (on youtube) is now deeply involved with MuseScore (UX lead or similar?); he put out an awesome vid on the design of MS4 at the beginning of the year: [LINK] His video on how Sibelius' UX is a pile of shit remains one of my favourite vids on yt: this video

      Strongly recommendsView on HN
    4. @sjwrightJun 2020· in “MuseScore 4: Moving from notation software to composition software”

      The cheese melts in the microwave; the music melts in Sibelius. Tantacrul’s review of Sibelius’ might be the most entertaining serious critique of a software user interface ever posted to YouTube. this video

      Strongly recommendsView on HN
    5. @TremendousJudgeMay 2022· in “Clairnote: An alternative music notation system”

      We are very, very far away from that. To get a feel of what scorewriter software is like nowadays, Tantacrul's videos[0] on the subject of UI are very good at showing what the state of the art is. On one of his videos he shows that the best score engraving can only be achieved by using a closed source, now-unsupported command line program from the 80s called Score[1] [0] this video [1] [LINK]

      RecommendsView on HN