Specific Suggestions on iNaturalist Next's UI

[silversea_starsong]

I have decided to make this a unique topic as I feel stuff might get lost bundled into the “what’s your feedback” general thread. I’d like to address some general takes on the UI and while I’m sure much of it has been commented before, I don’t see a better way to commit my overall view.

I do not have a professional graphic design background, but as the meme goes, “graphic design is my passion”, and so I feel like I have a decent enough commentary to provide. Regardless I hope this is useful feedback for consideration. And if y’all disagree with my impressions and suggestion here, I’ll back away and be quiet!!

1. Observation List

Comparison: Comparing the old and new app versions, the amount of observations shown drops from 12.5 to a minimal 6.5. There’s also a difference in information shown; the old app is very minimal only showing a hint of the observation date, and a number showing IDs+comments combined, versus a complete summary of location, date+time, comments, IDs, and grade status. In addition, the “header and footer” of this page is wider which restricts the space even further, but I’ll talk about that separately.

Discussion: I’ve expressed many times that the “curse” of new app versions, everywhere, seems to be a push to huge, excessive interfaces that may well be more accessible to a proportion of users, but generally bloat and drag down the efficiency of the screen. The ability to see 12 observations at once in the old list was just enough to avoid tedious and excessive scrolling to work “down” the list to find a recent observation of interest. The larger thumbnails are honestly not bad, and I do enjoy the extra information that the new version gives. However, it all comes at a cost to general viewing efficiency in the previous sense of how many can show on the screen at once, and that is unfortunate.

Potential compromises: A more summarized and less info-heavy version, or a more compact and condensed version. This already increases the number of visible observations from 6 to 8-9. Combining both raises that potentially to a very respectable 10.

2. Explore

Comparison: Similar to the previous, the new version of the app features larger icons, and significantly less observations on the screen, from 15 to 9. However, there is more information given per observation, and extra functionality in general for filtering and viewing observations and species.

Discussion: As above, I do enjoy the approach given to this new version, but regret the cost of just what can be shown in terms of observations. The screen limiting itself to only 2 per row is a significant downgrade, and while I understand it is necessary to fit all the information, I must ask, does it really need to be there? The purpose of the explore tab is just that, exploring, and so all the added information on this interface seems more like clutter, even if it is technically more useful. In addition, while the larger thumbnails are useful, they are entirely cluttered over by said information, so that seems to be a net indifference of purpose.

Compromise? First, I am not sure that the number of comments and IDs is really useful to see in this. However, I’ll focus more on how I think the view could be adjusted including that. I’m short on time so you’ll have to bare with my mspaint drawings (and a topical time to reuse a night-heron scribble from 2016). First, having the ID/comment/grade moved to the top feels like an obligatory start to avoid covering the thumbnail in more clutter. Second, if it’s decided infeasible to have three per row, opting for a more rectangular approach would cure some of the space woes. Third, while I didn’t do this in my example, I’d consider having the text smaller in general so more of the image can be seen. The other option is to go back to the three icon layout and add the extra icons, but I respect it might be “too small” for some.

3. Footer
   
   

Comparison: I am not sure what to say about these changes besides it feels like the intuitive change from “old school” to “new age”, with fancy icons that do not have text, and rely on the user’s interpretation or familiarity with the images only for navigation. Several of the icons have changed to new icons, and the text has ben removed. There’s also the decision to make the observe button huge and in the forefront.

Discussion: I don’t really have specific words for this change. It seems to both aim for a more simplistic style, but also somewhat alienate folks who are less familiar with the platform, or even the existing buttons. The choice of the compass instead of a globe is not my favourite, but I won’t nitpick. However, what really grinds my gears is that both the entire footer is larger, reducing available screen elsewhere, and the text is gone to save space, which is a bit of an oxymoron. I am not sure why apps try so hard to eliminate text. It is not cluttering, and it’s useful especially for people who are less visually-image-minded and who simply do not know what the icons mean.

Compromise? Reduce the height of the footer back to “normal” height, and consider adding the text back to the buttons. The observe button doesn’t need it, if you’re keeping it large and in charge, but the rest really would.

4. Activity

Comparison: As with other aspects, the size of the interface is increased, leading to less visible observations on the screen at any time. This is not a huge change compared to others mentioned, dropping from 11 visible to 8, but as part of the topic I’ll at least mention it.

Discussion: Less observations per screen means more scrolling, more scrolling to “see”. I don’t see much of a need to handicap this information given little has changed otherwise on the screen.

Compromise? Smaller spacing, smaller thumbnail? I’m not going to make an example for this one, as there is nothing else that can be changed besides these two easily described factors. And it would just simply look exactly like the old version.

5. Settings

Discussion: Since this is also minimal, I’ll just cut to the chase. Having the “username and email” at the top of the settings, without having to click another button to open the “iNaturalist settings”, was a quick an intuitive way to view this information. In addition, having the sign out button in a more accessible location felt natural and expected. Other buttons like “Contact Support”, “Love iNat? Rate Us”, and “Automatic Upload” were useful buttons in the old version that I feel like should continue to exist on the settings page here, rather than elsewhere. This is also a good place for the “suggest CV automatically” buttons, but since that’s a functionality entirely missing from this version, I’ll save that thought for one of the feature request and feature return threads.

That’s all for now. Now I pray my effort pays off, my opinions are not entirely disagreed with, that the app will feel more like home in future, and that the thread is not locked for being a “duplicate”

[eyekosaeder]

@silversea_starsong

I agree that the list view now is too cluttered and I really like the proposed version on the left. IMO, it looks cleaner than the original version while also showing more observations.

@silversea_starsong

In addition, while the larger thumbnails are useful, they are entirely cluttered over by said information, so that seems to be a net indifference of purpose.

I prefer how it is handled in the “my observations” page. There is just shows either the scientific name or the common name (depending on preference) and the image count in the top right corner. I don’t know why it is different in “explore”. Perhaps there could be some indication of whether the observation is Research Grade (perhaps by adding a green frame to the whole tile), but apart from that it is a far better tile view than in explore, IMO.

[charlie]

another UI suggestion: please make the map explore view more prominent. I really like being able to look at a map of observations around me (when i have cell service) and in Next it takes several clicks and is kind of hidden. I liked the globe button right at the front of the old app.

[hedaja]

Just went through the different screens again to see how I feel about them after reading your observations and suggestions.

1. i as lo don’t feel like the long date format with time of date would be essential enough to need to be shown in the list
   Same for the exact address. Maybe just city/state/country-code would be sufficient.
   And I think spacing could be slightly closer.
   On the other hand I don’t mind it very much to see a few less observations at once. At least for me scrolling though a couple dozen observations is quick enough and with a little extra space between them it I can more easily look while scrolling.

A thing I think which wouldn’t be necessary is the little welcome banner. It’s sweet to see when you Frist open the app, but once you start scrolling or doing other things in the app, I think it should stay hidden till you exit and enter the app again.

2. I actually like the bigger images because it makes it super easy to see what’s in it. The white space could maybe be slight narrow though.
   A compromise could also be a layout if 2 columns and one more densly with smaller images in 3 columns. Either in settings or just use zoom gesture.
   I also agree that the text on the image should somehow be handle differently. Moving the # of comments, # of IDs and ID status to the top (with the number of pictures. Would be a first step to free up the center where the subject is most likely gonna be.
   Another idea would be a possibility to hide the text Could be a check box or if you press and hold on one of the observations.

3. I think the footer could at least offer less visual bulkiness if the white space was fitting the the small icons and had a notch for the bigger observation button.
   I agree that usability of no labels is not ideal but in my option there are only 5 buttons in total which one probably quickly will get used too.

4. as with 1) I don’t mind the slightly bigger size on my screen much.
   one thing I was hoping for though, would be the get slightly more infomative ID notifications.
   right now you don’t really know if someone agreed or disagreed with your ID.
   maybe something like:
   “your ID was confirmed. Your observation is RG now.”
   " Someone offered a different ID"

[cthawley]

I agree that the number of observations looks like too few and also that sometimes it feels like too much info is being displayed, particularly with the text overlay on the thumbnails. It feels like the app is trying to do two things (more pic, more info) at once and does neither well. I rarely use the app, but this view alone would preclude me from using the new app for anything but observing as it feels so distracting. I like the idea of making a full line of info at the top in your night heron layout - the subject of pics are generally in the center, so covering the center of the pic with text/icons seems counterproductive.

I also like the globe icon better than the compass.

For the text for the icons on the footer, I generally agree that this helps. That said, there’s no text for the hamburger, and it probably isn’t needed for “me” - folks will recognize their own profile pic and clicking on your profile pic to access your own settings is pretty standard across many websites and apps. The only icons that I think really benefit from the text are explore and activity (and even the bell for activity is fairly widespread). If they were places in positions 2 and 4, then the text could be symmetrical at least.

[silversea_starsong]

Thanks for the comments, it’s good to bounce around thoughts on this! I didn’t put a huge amount of time into the “examples”, they are more just demonstrations of ideas. In any case, I hope we can see some adjustments made in future.