Canvas Apps Controls UI

Media controls in Power Apps – How to improve user experience!

by Hardit Bhatia

Playing media in Power Apps
Playing media in Power Apps

Introduction

Media controls can significantly enhance an app's functionality. The video control (to read more, click here), specifically, is very useful because it allows users to watch videos right from within the app.

Tip

A couple of properties of the video control that can enhance user experience significantly are:

  1. AutoStart - specifies whether an audio or video control automatically starts to play a clip when the user navigates to the screen that contains that control. This should always be set to FALSE.
  2. ShowControls - specifies whether an audio or video player shows, for example, a play button and a volume slider, and a pen control shows, for example, icons for drawing, erasing, and clearing. This should always be set to TRUE.

To illustrate this, I have two video controls. The one of the left has AutoStart set to TRUE and ShowControls set to TRUE. The one on the right has AutoStart set to FALSE and ShowControls set to FALSE.

Media control in Power Apps
Media control in Power Apps

As you can see, the video on the left starts as soon as the user navigates to the screen, which isn't an ideal user experience. The one on the right though shows no controls to adjust volume, pause/stop, change the video to full screen etc. The only way to pause the right video is to click on the video itself, which isn't too obvious.

Stay tuned for the remaining 13 tips!

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