Trevtassie

Message to the bright spark at Strava who decided to change the start arrow to a start circle. YOU ARE AN IDIOT! Why change an intuitive thing to a non intuitive thing. MORON. Thanks for making me not record my ride today because I thought the start circle was the stop icon.

Mos6502

I wonder if they read this forum.

Trevtassie

Hopefully they read their Facebook page, I droped the hamer hoping for a few personal bests today, only to discover the changes in the app meant it wasn't recording.... grrrr

02Giant 

A start circle with an arrow in it. What did you think would start the timer?

KevinF

Software engineers. Ah yes. We sit in our cubicles dreaming up ways to piss off our customers. It's truly a great life. We were picked on in school for our nerd-like behavior, but now we get our revenge for the rest of our lives by forcing everyone to use our devious designs.



Yes, I am a software engineer; however, I do not work for Strava.

Trevtassie

Nope, not any more. It's a circle with a #$%^ circle in it. Must have come in with the latest update..... I guess it could make sense if you grew up with '80s video recorders and got used to the round orange icon meaning record. Maybe that's what happened, somebody said "hey our icons don't make sense, they don't match a video recorder, that arrow icon looks like play, not record, we better fix that asap"

02Giant 

Apparently I haven't received any updates recently, I am still running on the update from mid summer.

Homebrew01

What's Strava ?

rm -rf

The ridewithgps app has the same thing.

It starts on the summary page, with a small red dot and "GO RIDE" at the bottom. Click it, and on the map/speeds page, there's a white circle with a red dot at the bottom. So, you've already clicked "GO RIDE" and now you have to push a red button to actually go ride?

The red button turns into a two vertical bar "pause" icon while it's recording. So why not just do the usual right arrow to start? And the pause needs to be held down for a few seconds to stop--I guess that's a good idea. After holding the pause, there's three choices: "X" , "checkmark", and red dot. At least it asks to confirm "Delete this ride?" when you hit "x'.

I grew up with recorders, and the red button didn't make sense to me either.

wphamilton

It's the same problem with any modal user interface, in my opinion. That's where the action of a button changes depending on what mode the program is in. Strava's UI design is bad from the get-go and changing the icons can't help it.

There is an android app that loads Strava and starts it recording but it seems a little buggy. Probably because of Strava interface changes. Strava needs a widget that sits on your phone's desktop and says "record" and "stop" and does nothing else.

spdracr39

Sorry but it looks pretty self explanatory to me. You can blame the machine but sometimes the operator has to just suck it up and move on.

ShortLegCyclist

Strava DOES have a widget with one button tap and record, but only for certain versions of Android.

It also displays your mileage for the week, but that is all.

bmthom.gis

I voice cammand my phone.."Ok Google, start a bike ride" bam, Strava starts recording automatically.
Guess you will just have to drop dat hammer again! It's good for you...

Elvo

You can just drive the route with your car and modify the meta-data to adjust your speed and time.

superdex

couple things: 1) it wasn't the software engineer that did it, it was the holier-than-thou user experience guru that drew it up in photoshop, spent probably a week worrying and adjusting the spacing of the two circles, then another week debating the shade of color to use. The software engineer looked at it, probably giggled a little, and coded it up.

2) it's a record button. You know, like the red <ahem> circle on your dvr remote?


(now, that being said, I didn't like it either. Then, 2 seconds later, I got over it)

Daniel4

Like to shut off your PC that's running on Windows you click the Start button.
To answer your smart phone, you drag the vibrating icon to either the right or left to answer or decline.
To turn your headlamp on, you have to cycle through the on/off button or hold it down for 2 seconds or something else.

There's a whole science relating to Human Factors engineering. For example, the elements on a stove are in a square, but the controls are either linear or in another square at a different plane, sometimes the rear element is the top and in other models it's the bottom.

Airplane crashes at landing have dramatically reduced after engineers changed the landing gear controls to feel and look differently from the throttle.

dieselgoat

He didn't drop the hammer, he droped the hamer.

Cyclosaurus

If this is what you are talking about:


Then I have to say that it seems intuitive to me. For as long as I remember a red dot means "record". I'd prefer this to an arrow. It's frustrating when things that you are used to change. But no one's getting fired at Strava for making what is a common sense UI change.

Cyclosaurus

My MTB twist-shift and my folding bike twist-shift work in different directions (despite both being SRAM). I'll get used to one for a few rides and then riding the other completely messes me up.

GamblerGORD53

I have zero confidence in any of these apps. I tried free map-my-ride a few times. I micro set the route and it keeps saying a 60 mile ride is 69. I click a 1/4 mile down the map and it gives an idiotic 4 mile detour. May as well ask a four year old for directions.

My Samsung5 updates are all completely ugly and or stupid as well.

Wheever

There used to be a whole science behind human-computer interfaces, taken to a high and professional art by the original Apple Mac UI design team. (One of them even wrote a book called "The art of the human-computer interface", where interactions and neurocognitive expectations resulting from those interactions were analyzed and understood.) Those designers were professionasl who took that interaction and user expectations very seriously. No more. Now it's all kids making stuff look "pretty" and "cool" or whatever, and the user experience be damned. Things often seemed to be changed simply for the sake of change, not to improve the usability of an application. Witness the changes from IOS6 to IOS7, with all the button cues--where a user is expected to press something so as to execute a function--removed and replaced with plain, thin text. (Such a fail that in some rev the ADDED a feature that let you put grey, button shaped, boxes around said text.) Or the "cool" animated graphics that were making users motion sick. Such a fail that, again, in a later rev they had to offer users the option of turning that "cool" "feature" off.

UI is a lost art among the millennials.

Wheever

OP, you should check out cyclemeter. Awesome and easily customizable screens where you can set up to see exactly what you want. Clean, easily navigated UI with buttons and labels, voice responses, alerts, etc. Exports to strava. IMHO, The strava app is weak, and the UI is pathetic. I pitched it.

mprelaw

Pro tip: before you stick the phone back in your pocket, check to make sure that the timer is under way. The new mobile app knows when you're not moving, and won't count the 2 seconds that it takes against your "moving time".

GP

Was that your worst experience of the day?

Wilfred Laurier

I use Strava and, while it is not the best software I have tried, I was never confused about which button was the 'Start'.
I vote for 100% OP's fault.