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Music Software & Interface Design: Steinberg's Dorico

Tantacrul · 949.3K views · 2020-04-24 · 1:06:59

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Overview

Tantacrul critiques the UX and UI of Steinberg's Dorico music notation software, comparing it with Sibelius and user testing it with real musicians alongside his own attempt to compose in it.

On Hacker News

HN recommends it as a rigorous, entertaining example of interface design review and notes the author later became head of design at MuseScore.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2020–2021

Topics

UX & UI designMusic theory, synthesis & production
Search by tags
ux reviewmusic notationdoricouser testinginterface design

What people said

guitarbill · 2021-04 · Recommendation

The MuseScore video is part entertainment, part critique. Personally, I don't think it's fair to dismiss it so quickly. He's very knowledgable in the field of music notation software, and is in a smaller niche of having used several of them professionally (most people stick to one or two). In another video on Dorico [0], he did user testing. So he's not just pulling things out his ass. It's easy to hate. MuseScore is better due to his involvement. The FOSS community should be more welcoming to UX devs in general, and especially who have a methodical approach and actually listen. Maybe wait and reserve judgement. [0] [VIDEO]

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ohazi · 2020-11 · Recommendation

For those out of the loop: Tantacrul is a composer who put together some hilariously scathing UI/UX video reviews for some popular composing software tools out there, including MuseScore [1] [2] [3]. The team developing MuseScore then brought him on as head of design. [1] Sibelius: [LINK] [2] MuseScore: [LINK] [3] Dorico: [VIDEO]

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lifthrasiir · 2021-05 · Reference

Tantacrul, the project lead for both MuseScore and Audacity, is a professional UI/UX designer and has once conducted a significant first-time user testing for Dorico [1], so I'm pretty sure that he already knows what you are saying. Given his latest video about Audacity [2] though, I guess that Audacity has a very diverse user base and it might be hard to do the user testing while accounting for that diversity (the article you've linked specifically mention this issue). [1] [VIDEO] [2] [LINK] (includes an interview with original Audacity developers)

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Sources

Video by Tantacrul, played through YouTube.

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