Gonna list my thoughts to keep myself from losing them too far…. My thoughts when I heard the news and then informed by everyone’s discussion here:
- I agree that trying to smush two different types of users into one app or whatever is not helpful. I personally did not understand why iNat binned Seek, but now I do. I don’t think it was the right decision. Speaking from personal experience, I used Seek for many years and was intimidated and slightly overwhelmed by the thought of being on iNat. Seek helped me engage with the garden I made and the things that visited (many of those photos are now on iNat!). But I didn’t want to deal with uploading things and being part of iNat. But the app still achieved the goal of getting me more engaged with life and ecology around me. Why get rid of that?
- I joined iNat mainly to upload periodical cicada photos bc I realized they would have scientific value. That said, it was an extremely bumpy learning curve. There is no onboarding tutorial, it’s just kinda “here ya go.” And yes, I realize there are help articles and etc. but it was not simple enough for my brain at the time.
- Having a dedicated UI/UX person for the website on iNat would be helpful. I am concerned that the focus on the apps has sacrificed time to work with the website, which has its own quirks and coding things. Having someone focused on the website and user experience with it, which remains heavily used for observations (and is necessary to use for identification) would allow Tony to manage fire drills and bugs, while someone else is actively working on feature addition, or other things to address the needs of both power users, and newbies. Things like tooltip messages if you hover your mouse over a DQA - I am usually on my tablet so maybe this already exists, but… - that explain the DQA without having to reference a different help article. Things like landscape DQAs, or a help-along interface for people just joining. I am just using these as illustrations, not feature requests.
- As others have mentioned, better/more consistent communication channels with users.
- iNat is only in its second or so year as an independent nonprofit. Although iNat has been around for almost two decades, it being its own nonprofit is new, and so it has struggles it has to deal with in that regard. Perhaps this is a good time for a “checkin”. Are the bylaws still good? What are the expectations and qualifications for board members? Are board members reviewing feedback from staff about leadership when giving yearly evaluations? These are all things that are more internal to iNat, but that I point out as someone who has served on a nonprofit board and has had to deal with board stuff.
- I disagree that having a dues-paying member board voting model is good for iNat. iNat is global first of all, and as someone pointed out (@DianaStuder I think) - internet access, tech access, etc. is not distributed equally. Neither is money.
- What I think COULD be a good idea is having an iNat science and user advisory board. Again, this goes to iNat’s growth and sort of shuffling around bylaws and decisionmaking and such as a new nonprofit. Many conservation organizations have a board of directors, and then a separate advisory board of experts in their field. I think that could be helpful for iNat. It would allow some of the power users on iNat as well as other scientific experts a way to interface with the Board and staff to better steer the org’s long term direction.
I think I have more thoughts, but I need to eat dinner…..