Music Software & Bad Interface Design: Avid’s Sibelius

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: this video [2] MuseScore: link [3] Dorico: link

My favourite example of this is Sibelius. The 'Quit Sibelius' button is precisely where you'd expect to find the 'Next' button. This video shows it at 6:33 this video

> doing things like automating certain workflows where possible, building some custom tools, etc. The goal is to slowly transition to working as a programmer at Steinberg or Ableton or something like that, and then start my own company. I presume you’ve contacted tantacrul[1] who is now working[2] redesigning Audacity, with a hilarious video on the hellscape of a UI that is Sibelius[3]. I am guessing becoming a UI designer for a major piece of software is less difficult than becoming a composer? [1] link [2] link [3] this video Thank you for your story - it is a good reminder of the risks we face.

I was wondering why the name Avid was familiar but also had a negative connotation in my head, then I remembered it was from a YouTube video [1] about how horrible its interface is. 1. this video

That's very much it. You could also make an analogy to the arts of typography and typesetting. It's of the same importance to a composer or musician that the notation is legible and beautiful, as it is to a graphic designer or reader that type and layout are legible and beautiful. If the GP is interested in the topic, there are great videos by Tantacrul on his experience redesigning the notation font for MuseScore [0] and his overview of MuseScore 4.0's engraving improvements [1] - in particular this second video, concerning mainly layout, shows just how far this CSS approach would have to go to have a truly legible, reflowable layout in the face of beams/slurs/ties. (I don't want to take away from anyone on the Sibelius team, they're likely even better experts on the subject than Tantacrul is, but as far as I know, they didn't make long-form Youtube videos about the topic! He also likely got the job of leading the MuseScore redesign thanks to his previous videos that critiqued and reimagined the interfaces of music composition software... including older versions of Sibelius [2] and MuseScore [3]) [0] link [1] link [2] this video [3] link

Relevant Tantacrul video on the erosion of the Sibelius UI: this video I used Sibelius extensively circa version 5, and refused to upgrade for many years. I used it to get through my music minor in college. I still have the installer and a k*ygen on a hard drive somewhere since they stopped selling licenses to it and I lost mine. Still my preferred software, and yes I've tried Musescore. It's not nearly the same. Old software still works.

Obligatory posting of Tantacrul's hilariously vicious kicking of Sibelius[0] "This really is one of the great examples of breaking all UI design principles and every UX design principle too. It's like a design bull in a musical china shop." this video [0] They may have fixed things in the intervening 8 years, I'm not a composer, I don't know.