Dear Ondrej, Dear Product Team,
thank you @Ondřej-Šutera for your response in another thread here. I understood, that there will be no general roll-back to the old version. That is understandable in some respect.
Still, please do not forget the concerns of us, your customers. I agree with you, that probably some complaints are just because "something has changed". But other complaints are substantial in my opinion, e.g. the issue with retrieving weather for a specific location.
My major concern is about the "user path" or "user journey" from starting the app to comparing wind predictions for different locations. This is very inefficient at the moment and prevents to efficiently study the weather forecast for a larger region.
Before ("old" app):
- Open the app
- Zoom & pan to relevant region
- Tap on the screen somewhere -> a dot and a "flag" with the local weather appears at that location
- Tap on the flag -> the time-line with the local weather appears at the lower screen
- Tap on "wind" -> wind predictions of all models are shown
If I now want another location (old app):
- Tap on different location -> wind predictions of all models are shown for this new location, map stays as it is
- Tap on different location -> wind predictions of all models are shown for this new location, map stays as it is
- and so on ...
Current version of app:
- Open the app
- Zoom & pan to relevant region, target location of interest with cross-hair
- Tap on "forecast for this location" -> the time-line with the local weather appears at the lower screen (when doing this at low zoom levels (overview), the map is automatically zoomed to some high (detailed) zoom level)
- Tap on "display as" -> selection menu "Basic, Waves, Wind, ..." opens
- Select "wind" -> wind predictions of all models are shown
If I now want another location (new app):
- Tap on "X" to actively close prediction time-line
- Zoom & pan to new relevant region, target location of interest with cross-hair
- Tap on "forecast for this location" -> the time-line with the local weather appears at the lower screen (when doing this at low zoom levels (overview), the map is automatically zoomed to some high (detailed) zoom level)
(- Do this again for each new location...)
Edit & Correction: The "move map" option solves this to some degree, still an issue, since the user is forced to move map, also auto-zoom issue persists.
So, where before changing location was a single tap on the location of interest (same map view), I now need to navigate to a new position (which means to move the map) to get the forecast there.
Probably this might sound as if this is no big deal. But during sailing the app is used several times a day to study the development of wether predictions for a specific region, which involves quickly switching between different locations in that region. To stay focussed it is crucial not being forced to change map view. Also, every unnecessary interaction should be avoided. Having to move the map, auto-zoom, lets me quickly loose focus while studying the weather.
In reference to the above, I kindly like to propose small changes to the new app.
Specifically my suggestions are:
- Let users simply tap on the map to show the wind prediction time-line for the tapped location
- Keep shown map region as it is (no auto-zoom) during selection of a new location
I guess, these are ideas, that could be implemented as small modifications with minimal impact on other new features of the app. Implementing this would bring user experience back to the efficient interaction that was provided by the old version of the app.
In summary: An efficient way of studying weather for a certain region is crucial. The old app was very good in this respect, for the new app the "user journey" to get to the same result (wind for a specific location) is too complicated.
So I kindly ask you to discuss/consider my suggestions and I hope you can see the above as constructive ideas.
I'm open to discussion. Please let me know, if anything of the above is unclear.
Probably you can see from the time I invested in my posts here how much I love your app and how much I like to also use it efficiently in the future ;-)
Thank you
Edit: Added reference to "move map" option.