UX FAIL VOL. 1 - aka - HOW TO LOOP A VIDEO ON YOUTUBE

LOS ANGELES, CA

Rarely do I make a UI or UX related discovery that delights and angers me at the same time.  I recently learned that there is a secret repeat or "loop" function on Youtube.  Here's how to do it (it's so simple yet obtuse at the same time that it's maddening).

In Youtube, double-right click the video window, and select "Loop" from the pop-up menu that appears.

I use Youtube almost exclusively for listening to background music to enhance mental focus on tasks and remain "in the flow."   Many times, I just want to listen to the same piece of music over and over again.  Sometimes I'll search for "extended" versions of songs or playlists to remove the need to constantly interrupt what I'm doing to switch over to my YouTube browser tab and reload the video.  

I'm delighted that I found out about this feature, which is why I'm sharing it on the blog.  Hopefully it will help you too - spread the word!  But I'm also super-annoyed that it took me years to find out about it.  Why?

First, there's a long-standing precedent for obvious looping music functions in consumer product user interfaces.  Think about a repeat button on a physical CD player or even MP3 desktop player UI’s like WinAmp. You click the repeat function to toggle between repeat once and repeat all settings. 

Something's a little rotten in Denmark...

Second, when in the 30+ year history of graphical user interfaces has any function been mapped to double-right click for God's sake?  In terms of discoverability and providing an intuitive affordance, this is a pretty obtuse implementation.  It’s frustrating because you could easily fix it by putting the function on the existing repeat playlist icon, or on the single right-click menu.

Now, I've noticed that repeat functions don't seem to be present in a lot of modern music software.  It's completely absent on iPods and iTunes (hmmm...maybe I’ll save the latter for a  future “UX Fail” blog post - stay tuned).  Did this fall out of style somehow?  

I’m open to the possibility that I’m missing some point or that it’s just not important to the majority of users, but just do a Youtube search for any artists or song title and add the word “extended mix” or “extended version."  I bet it won’t take you long to find find similar results, so draw your own conclusions.  

Notice how popular extended remixes on Youtube can be...

   So what do YOU think is going on with the Youtube UI?  Is the repeat function a relic of a bygone era?   Is this a well-intentioned but misguided band-aid fix?  Or are there valid business, e-commerce, or UX reasons for this implementation?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

PS - The screenshot of Youtube was taken from the soundtrack for the video game “Shatter” by Sidhe Interactive.  It was composed by a super-talented, New Zealand-based electronic musician known as Module.  Both the game and the soundtrack are  well worth your time and support.

http://www.shattergame.com/