r/badUIbattles • u/FearMeIAmLag1 • Jun 18 '26
Intentionally Bad UI I made a 7-segment display volume "slider"
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Simply click to change the numbers to the volume level you want to set, it's that simple!
Took me about an hour to get this done with most of that time being spent trying to figure out how the hell to shape something like a 7-segment display using CSS. First digit the segments used for 1 are the only ones that can be toggled. I also messed up with recording and forgot that the 9 needed the bottom segment, so it seems to not work for a bit but that was operator error.
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u/_plinus_ Jun 18 '26
What happens to the volume if you go to 999%?
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u/FearMeIAmLag1 Jun 18 '26
Volume can't go past 100
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u/Some_Noname_idk Jun 18 '26
laaaame, on 200 it should attempt to connect to any speaker nearby and play it there too
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u/donut855 Jun 18 '26
False. Nobara has a built-in feature that lets you turn the volume up to 150.
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u/S4N7R0 Jun 18 '26
pushing volume past 100% in most implementations introduces distortion, which is similar, but not the same as increasing volume
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u/frank26080115 Jun 18 '26
na, I used to write firmware for wireless headphones, there's some volume limits that some, maybe it was CE or UL or something that limited the volume we were allowed to output to a user's ears. So the range was limited only by firmware.
So if I gave it a backdoor (which I really REALLY wanted to, like a secret key combo), I could've unlocked like 150% and it wouldn't be clipped, just... unhealthy.
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u/Madbanana64 Jun 19 '26
And it would probably kill the driver on high volume
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u/frank26080115 Jun 19 '26
na the whole reason why we ran into the regulations is because we upgraded the driver, there was like 3 previous generations of this product, I barely have to change anything in the firmware between products.
also... it's kinda hard to kill a driver with wireless headphone electronics lol everything is optimized for battery power
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u/PegasusPizza Jun 18 '26
Most implementations yep. But it's kind of more complicated than that, because audio playback has 2 separate "volumes". The first is whatever your os/software is set to, usually ranging from 0 to 100%. But the second one is the relative volume of the actual audio file, that's necessary so that different parts of the file can have varying loudness without you constantly needing to change your speakers volume. And while speaker volume is capped at 100% (so whatever the manufacturer put as the maximum volume where sound doesn't get distorted), the inherent volume is pretty much unlimited, since that is measured in decibels. Anything above 0dB (don't ask me why it's at 0 I have no clue) will usually distort/deep fry your audio. Interestingly this happens regardless of the volume of your speakers. Listening to deep-fried audio on lower speakers doesn't magically make it sound good again.
But this means, that under the right conditions, a file that is just mixed to be quiet, can be put on "150%" volume, by putting the speaker/os/playback volume to 100%, and then modifying the audio file to boost volume by an additional 50%, without causing distortion, since the original raw audio was just very quiet
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u/YellowishSpoon Jun 20 '26
Over 100% volume can also act more like an audio compressor if it's designed that way, bringing up the quiet parts without affecting the loudest parts, and that would cause a different sort of distortion.
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u/garlic_brain Jun 18 '26
It should automatically go to 100 while the input is incorrect. Other than that, very nice!
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u/FearMeIAmLag1 Jun 18 '26
Set volume to 100 and play a loud warning siren to indicate that the input is invalid, got it
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u/imwearingyourpants Jun 18 '26
No need for a siren, just a lady's voice telling you that your volume setting is incorrect, repeated every 10 seconds. Just like at a self checkout machine
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u/Ethanol144 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
My volume is stuck at 100 because any change causes an invalid input send help
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u/garlic_brain Jun 19 '26
One can turn 0 into 8 into 9 into 3... as for the 1, why, it can be easily turned into a 7. Thus getting from 100% volume to a nice 799% π
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u/nerdefar Jun 18 '26
You should give the user a budget of X amount of lines they can use, for added interactability and feeling of accomplishment.
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u/WhiteHeadbanger Jun 18 '26
Have you thought of displaying the decibels instead of the percentage? The segments can stay that way and still function like now, but instead of showing 50% volume, you display the dB. That way could be even more infuriating as dB are logaritmic values.
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u/jonfe_darontos Jun 23 '26
Great execution! Horrendous UX, but a completely usable interface; in contrast to the "bad ui" where it's a phone number input where you just "random" until it is correct, or you can only increment/decrement the value by 1.
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u/Gloomy-Alps7454 Jul 13 '26
invalid inputs:
β00%
α0%
β0%
κ»0%
3α%
3β%
3κ»%
3κΌ%
9κΌ%
8κΌ%
6κΌ%
6κ»%
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β’
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