New Site Design

Sicahjes

Is there a mechanism whereby we can provide feedback and or discuss the new website design.

I know someone has worked hard on this, so I'm not trying to be mean... but it is awful. Especially on the custom recipe and foods page. For those of us that have a lot of recipes, it is so messy. The line break between each item is too big making the list seem even bigger. This is compounded by the fact that the list is no longer contained. It was better when it was contained within a box and users could scroll through without dropping to the bottom of the page. Now I scroll and there's just a load of empty white space in the main page area.

It is glaring white, which is hard on the eyes, at the very least that needs to be toned down. With all the white, wide spaces, and lack of containment, it looks unfinished.

The interface of any system is key. For a lot of users it determines whether or not they want to use the system. I feel like I've paid for a product that I no longer want to use, and as such have wasted my money. It would have been ideal for developers to engage with users prior to doing this.

Karen_Cronometer

Hi Sicahjes,

We appreciate hearing your feedback here or at support@cronometer.com

There was a lot of work put into updating our website design - and there is always room for improvement! We are open to hearing your suggestions and ideas to keep things user friendly.

Cheers,

Sicahjes

Thank you for the quick response.

As is, the Food section is not user friendly for me. It largely appears as floating text on white space. It seems completely stripped back. The Diary page is ok, but a big reason for using Cronometer for me is the custom recipe and foods page.

Below is a list of things that worked with the previous design:

• The background was not pure white. This made it much easier on the eyes and didn't induce a headache.
• Colour and borders were used to contain information
• The lists of custom items were tidy
• Users didn't have to navigate away from a recipe in order to scroll through saved recipes
• There were clearer sections on each page

Further, this was a missed opportunity to add extra categories and tags, or an ability to create custom categories and tags (i.e. mock meat, tofu, soy etc.).

Is there a way to recover the remainder of my annual membership? I can't see myself using the website as is, tbh. This was a real disappointment for me. I loved Cronometer.

Thanks,

Edit: I will trial it for a week or so... but after putting in a couple of recipes, I'm really not a fan. If you could fix these issues, that would be awesome.

Hilary

Thanks so much for your well thought out feedback. We really appreciate the time you took to let us know your thoughts!
We take customer feedback very seriously and will certainly take your feedback into consideration.

In terms of navigation on the website, we hope that the new tab system will be a bit more consistent and easy to access. You can find all your option in each section laid out cleanly at the top of the page in sub tabs. You shouldn't need to navigate away from your recipe editor view to view your list of recipes. You will find these listed down the left hand side of your page. If you do navigate away from the recipe to a different tab, you will be able to go right back to your recipe you were on and pick right back up where you left off!

You can organize your custom foods and custom recipe lists with a couple of different options using the arrows in the top right corner of the page

You can learn more about the foods tab in our new user manual here: https://cronometer.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018239492

We would love to hear your feedback after you have tried it out for a while!

Sicahjes

It's been nearly a month, and I'm still not a fan.

I stopped using Cronometer for a few weeks. Which is a real shame, because I loved it before and recommended it to everyone... but the white gives me a headache, and the recipe tool is not intuitive.

I see your point about reordering the recipe index, but all that means is that you can sort it alphabetically or recent addition. That's great if you need a recent recipe or something near the letters A or Z... but little else.

You still have to scroll like a maniac away from the page you're on to find what you need or to browse, because the section is no longer contained.

I tried.... but this is a great example of why sites shouldn't make major changes without consultation.

Containing the recipe index and offering a theme change would fix these issues.

Karen_Cronometer

Hi Sicahjes,

We are taking into account your feedback and are currently working on improving the custom recipe and custom food lists to make this easier to see and navigate.

We will keep working on future improvements.

Thanks for your feedback!

fitgirl

I agree as welll this is my first trying Cronometer and as much as I want to love I just can’t due to that glaring white theme, also it would be nice to have a water tab so you can input your water intake rather then having to have to click on add food and adding water that way, it’s so time consuming especially if you drink a lot of water. I think I’m gonna switch back to carb manager until the site gets a better look.

Lolinda

Indeed the design was better before. The empty white spaces is a typical effect of hiring a "designer": someone who learnt graphic design but didnt learn usability or working with users.

In addition of what has been already mentioned, I add that for me, the search foods subtab within the foods tab has highest priority but it comes last. If that is only me, I don't say a thing, but searching foods is a very frequent task. The other way of searching foods would be trying to add one to a diary day. That is, however, dysfunctional as one cannot look at the contents, one can look only at the list of hits. Certainly, one can tap on the number of nutrients what takes one to the full nutrients page, but then one falls out of the diary on which one is working.

A further annoyance is that when opening the search food tab, it doesnt offer the search field immediately, but one has to click on +search foods to tell this poorly designed website once more the same wish that yes, I really want what I want: search for foods.

All this looks like a lack of interaction design, where the efficiency of the user interacting with the website would be put first. Instead of that, we got half oranges to marvel at...... I like them but I would prefer to work efficiently.

Thanks for considering.

Lolinda

@Karen_Cronometer
Hi Karen, you always make nice comments to everyone, promise them that you guys at Crono take feedbacks seniously, etc. You fill that role perfectly, smartly and nicely. The problem is, however, that seeing again and again that customer wishes do not get done for the vast majority, turns all your nice words bitter., The problem at Crono is not lack of nice words but actually doing things that customers need. So may I invite you to do a new thing: instead of responding me (which I appreciate! I really mean it that you do it nicely!) do change one single thing you can change (I guess not on your own but working together with others) and come back then with a response when it is DONE: we changed X, how do you like it?
This is how devs of other apps do it and it gives the users the really good feeling that all their feedback is not wasted and merely served with beautiful words BUT THE DEVS REALLY ACT UPON IT!
@fitgirl @Sicahjes

Hilary

Hi @Lolinda ,
Here at Cronometer we are a small team with some big goals. We are currently in the process of working on some big updates for the mobile app, the web version and the professional version. User requests are always taken under consideration, as ultimately it is YOU that we build the app for. However, when making changes to the app, we must be calculated and consider all the effects and outcomes of the change, as well as the requirements to implement that change. Do be assured, our developers and designers see all user feedback, but we collect information before implementing a change.
You may have noticed that searching your own custom foods and recipes within the foods tab has recently been implemented. This has been implemented as a direct result of user feedback.

wklambert

@Lolinda

I have to disagree with your disparaging comments about the @cronometer team. They are definitely a small group of folks that are working diligently for the consumers of the product. I have been using Crono for over two years, and have seen numerous customer requests implemented. From offering the ability to track net carbs, and subtracting sugar alcohols, to adding the ability to track the timing of entries, the crono team has made a very large number of changes to the crono app due to customer requests. The fact that they have not necessarily implemented any of your ideas (yet) does not mean that they don't listen. Being in the IT industry, I know first hand, how difficult it can be to discern user requests for wishes and requirements. The sheer number of requests that are wishes (the color of a button, or the order of columns, for example) must be taken into account, and most times have to be scrutinized and prioritized. They are a small shop. Instant gratification, while nice, is nearly impossible. Again, that does not take away from the fact that they are working very hard to implement as many changes that make sense, as they can. Not to mention, what you may think would be a great addition to the application, another user may not think the same way. There are a LOT of users of this app. The requests that will benefit the most users will likely get the higher priority.

The point of my comment is this... While you might not agree, the crono team is working very hard on this application, and has been for quite a while. They are very responsive to their users (more than I can say for countless other apps) and do their best to make changes that their users want. Have a change that you want made? Request it! The more users you get to like your changes, or agree with your stance, the more traction your request will get. But please, don't be nasty with the team. They are working for you. For me. For all of us.

Hilary

Thanks so much @wklambert; its so nice to hear your kind words! We truly do love any and all user feedback, and your comment sure gave me some warm fuzzies!

Sicahjes

I have to say, the search recipe update is a great new feature. Thank you.!

From my perspective, that is a perfect example of the developers listening - it relates directly to an issue I raised in this post, and has solved that issue.

So thank you!

Lolinda

Hey @Hilary
great that you posted this example of implementing a user wish. This really answers the trouble pointed out on this thread very positively!

May I make a suggestion?
➞ Why not always post such messages if you implemented new features?

Your benefit: Users are more satisfied and you have to answer less criticism

Our benefit: We learn about new features and can explore them

You already had a limited version of this: a single recent feature was advertised on the diary page a while ago. I loved this! You will have had your reasons why you removed that. But wouldn't the feature request forum be a perfect place for this as here all the feature hungry meet? Why not post a list of short sentences each advertising a recent new feature? I ask for as littleas that after you worked hard for days on a new feature, invest a minute to write a sentence advertising it. Clicking on it would lead to a screenshot just like the one you did.

Lolinda

PS: One had to find a good place for it. I would give it a premium place because it is really really important to not only do good work but also show it to the users. I would sacrifice the right column in threads such as this one, which is currently used for a list of forums. I suggest this because I never used this list and because the forum list anywise can be accessed by navigating back.
How does this sound? Any better ideas?

Hilary

Thanks for the great suggestion Lolinda!
We are a pretty small team here at Cronometer, and are currently working on new marketing strategies (hence the popup you saw) We are working towards using this system as well as our blog to notify users of new and exciting updates!

Lolinda

Hi @Hilary
I like your new profile photo!
looks good, looks professional and has a personal/spontaneous touch, all these at the same time.

If I remember correctly, you guys are currently working on updating the app. May I add in a simple feature request? When swiping an entry to the right, that blue cogwheel appears. In the cogwheel menu, could you please add a menu item "add"? chosing this, one could add a food, a note or a measurement just right there at this spot (that is, above the current swiped diary entry).
This would add great utility to the appas one had not to add something and then move it all the way to the right spot.

Example of a use case: whenever I add a note, it is about a specific diary entry, for example an explanation about an unusual measurement or food intake. So it must be right there above or under that entry.

You remember, I made above a rather critical comment about crono design: that it is super beautiful but neglects the aspect of interaction design. Now this is an example of exactly this: optimize for absolutely smooth and efficient user interaction. Minimize user effort. Find out about use cases real users have in real life and optimize them to the best. (I am familiar with this business as I actually worked in this. I learned that for example in Germany, there is just a tiny tiny number of design schools that teach this. For all others, design equals merely: beautiful websites! But users always want both. And long-term satisfaction and thus recommendation to others does not so much depend on beauty but on smoothness of getting things done. That will be your profit!)

Hilary

Thanks for the well thought out suggestion, @Lolinda. I will pass this along to our design team. Before implementing any design or functionality changes, we must first conduct user research and thorough testing.

Lolinda

Thankyou.

• Or is the scope of functionality for this update of the app already defined and the project is already in the implementation or even testing phase?

Lolinda

Sorry if I came too late...

Hilary

Never too late! We are constantly working towards new updates and revisions.

f00

Chiming in a bit late here - I just bought gold after evaluating Cronometer for a bit. My immediate reflection is that someone is really taking UI seriously here - Simple, powerful, snappy and just overall really thought-through.
I don't mind if you add color theming or whatever, but please don't break the super useful UI

Lolinda

@f00 I fully agree: Crono is super useful. I have evaluated many other nutrition logging websites and Crono is the best, by a magnitude. This is why I am here and this is why I spend time to criticise Crono hoping it gets even more useful.
You will notice things worthy of being improved when you are past the initial enthusiasm and you already spent so many hours entering lots of data. Example: whenever I had an impression that a certain food caused health probs over the years, I wanted to do something as simple as check when have eaten it an when not. There is no way to do so. This simple function has been demanded by many...
This is what modern design (so called "interaction design") addresses: look over the shoulder of users and see where they stumble. See how they would like to interact with the website or app and support those use cases. That is, not simply a website that impresses, that has a superb UI, or that can do everything on earth, but one where the right things many users need are at the right place. It actually costs little effort, but it requires a change in mentality: not start with features or big software development projects or listening to users (like me ) who shout the loudest, but start with finding out use cases in real usage of different users by watching them, by talking to many or by doing surveys...

...Such a mentality change is, however, very very hard....