http://www.youtube.com/
The Youtube video player is an obvious design for a few reasons. According to Hoekman's qualities of a great web application he mentions a few qualities that are obvious in this design. first quality I noticed was the video player as a "product of intent." When a user approaches a video on youtube, firstly, the well known image of the triangular play button appears in the middle of the screen. the only 2 necessary buttons to use the player are the two grouped together in the bottom left corner. which brings me to my next point and another one of Hoekman's qualities, "it has only those features that are absolutely necessary for users to complete the activity." While this video player does provide more than what is necessary, the only two necessary buttons are very clear and intuitive symbols understood throughout different languages. and the buttons themselves are interactive. When you lower the volume using the volume button the speaker icon gets smaller and when you click the play button it switches to pause. this provides useful cues to the user, a play button will not be present if the video is playing for example. This allows users to "easily recover from mistakes and difficult to make them in the first place". I could continue listing all of his qualities of a well designed web application but the truth is that Youtube has done an incredible job designing the obvious. From the fact that the player helps users get started quickly by playing the video once it has been clicked, or how it deliberately persuades users to click specific buttons to take further actions, every element of the video player is designed to be obvious.
It's great that you're citing the book. It will save you a lot of headaches on later blog posts. I'd never thought about the symbols used on the video player as representative of what Youtube's "product of intent" is, but anyone who had ever used a remote or a VCR will instantly know what that box does.
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